'"i«^'" 


1 


f^';'<(V*.V; 


^   JUN  23  1897  ^ 
^     A^ 


Di»ismn.:B.^480 
Section /..L..^o 
No._ 


PRINCETON    LECTURES. 

A   series  of  volumes  containing  the   notable  lectures  de- 
livered on  the  occasion  of  the  Sesquicentennial 
celebration  of  Princeton  Utiiversity. 

The  French  Revolution  and  English  Literature.    Six  Lectures. 

By  Prof    Edward  Dowden,  Trinity  College,  Dublin. 
Theism.    Two  Lectures.     By  'Prof.  Andrew  Seth,  University  of 

Edinburgh. 

The  Discharge  of  Electricity  in  Gases.    Four  Lectures.   By  Prof. 

J.  J.   Thomson,  University  of  Cambridge. 
The  Mathematical  Theory  of  the  Top.     Four  Lectures.    By  Prof. 

Felix  Klein,  University  of  Gottingen. 
The  Descent  of  the  Primates.    By  Prof.  A.  A.  w.  Hubrecht, 

University  oi  Utrecht. 

The  Nature  and  Origin  of  the  Noun  Genders  in  the  Indoger- 
manic  Languages.  By  Prof.  Karl  BRUriMANN,  University  of 
Leipsic 

The  Claims  of  the  Old  Testament.  Two  Lectures  By  Prof. 
Stanley  Leathes,  D.D.,  King's  College,  London. 


THE   CLAIMS   OF  THE  OLD 
TESTAMENT 


T  U  E 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD 
TESTAMENT 


LECTURES  DELIVERED  IN  CONNECTION   WITH 

THE  SESQUICENTENNIAL  CELEBRATION 

OF   I'RINCETON    UNIVERSITY 


UY 


STANLEY    LEATHES,    D.I). 

Professor  op  Old  Testament  Exeobsis 
IN  Kino's  College,  London 


NEW    YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1897 


Copj/rifjht,  1897, 
By  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


Santbcrsitg  Press: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A. 


THE   CLAIMS   OF  THE   OLD 
TESTAMENT 

LFXTUIJK  T 

Ix  the  two  lectures  1  sliall  liave  the  lioiior  to 
give  iu  response  to  your  kind  invitation,  I  shall 
endeavor  to  investigate  the  reasons  for  which  we 
accept  the  Old  Testament  as  the  record  of  a  reve- 
lation possessed  of  Divine  autliority,  and  in(juire 
how  far  they  are  affected  by  recent  theories  and 
speculations  concerning  it.  There  would  seem 
at  first  sight  to  he  sonietliing  of  the  nature  of 
surprise  in  the  fact  that  a  tradition  whicli  has 
held  its  ground  for  at  least  two  thousand  years, 
and  is  common  alike  to  the  antagonistic  Jewish 
and  Christian  churches,  should  he  found  at  last 
delusive  and  erroneous  ostensibly  on  tlie  ground 
of  scholarship,  though  accepted  and  handed  down 
by  some  of  the  greatest  of  scholars  from  the 
first;  and  this  with  so  nuich  of  confidence  and 
assurance  that  to  oifVr  any  apology  fnr  a  tradi- 
tion so  venerable  is  to  incur  hnthwitli  the  re- 
1 


2       CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

proach  of  being  no  scholar,  and  to  be  pronounced 
disqualified  for  forming  or  uttering  any  opinion 
on  the  matter;  though  at  the  same  time  it  must 
persistently  be  borne  in  mind  that  it  was  em- 
phatically declared  by  the  pioneers  of  the  anti- 
traditional  views  that  the  question  raised  was 
not  one  of  scholarship  at  all,  but  much  rather 
of  ordinary  judgment  and  common-sense,  such 
as  any  intelligent  man  might  be  supposed  to  pos- 
sess. "The  critic,"  we  are  told  by  Kuenen,  "has 
no  other  Bible  than  the  public.  He  does  not 
profess  to  have  any  additional  documents  inac- 
cessible to  the  laity,  nor  does  he  profess  to  find 
anything  in  his  Bible  that  the  ordinary  reader 
cannot  see."  This  is  sufficiently  precise  and  clear, 
and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  in  the  course  of 
discussion. 

There  is,  however,  surely  an  element  of  weak- 
ness betrayed  by  the  fact  that  notwithstanding 
the  bar  of  common-sense  is  thus  so  frankly  ap- 
pealed to,  no  sooner  does  a  layman,  or  a  divine  of 
the  traditional  school,  engage  in  the  controversy 
than  he  is  at  once  silenced  by  the  cry,  "  Oh, 
but  you  are  no  scholar.  Without  the  profound 
grammatical  and  linguistic  knowledge  of  an  ex- 
pert, and  without  having  the  visual  ray  purged 
so  as  to  be  enabled  to  recognize  the  broad  and 


CLAIMS  OF  THK  OLD  TESTAMENT       3 

patent  characteristics  that  distiii^miish  the  sc\'e- 
ral  contributions  of  J.  and  K.  and  I),  and  P.  and 
(}.  and  \l.,  you  arn  of  course  not  capable  of 
appreciating'  the  irrefragultle  character  of  the 
verdict  given  by  tliose  wlio  are,  nor  of  seeing 
how  absolutely  certain  and  conclusive  it  is." 
Now,  it  is  this  initial  inconsistency  of  which  I 
complain.  Hither  the  Uible  is  an  open  book  or 
it  is  not.  If  it  is,  then  my  opinion,  even  as  a 
layman,  if  I  can  substantiate  it,  may  be  as  good  as 
yours;  and  it  is  not  I  or  you,  l)ut  tlie  unlearned 
public  at  large,  who  must  judge.  If  the  I>ible  is 
not  an  open  book,  then  the  matter  must  be  left 
to  scholars;  but  in  that  case  what  becomes  of  the 
boast  of  Kuenen,  that  the  critic  has  no  other 
Bible  than  the  public;  and  what  becomes  of  the 
court  to  which  the  appeal  was  so  confidently  and 
magnanimously  made  ?  There  is  a  manifest  in- 
consistency here,  and  it  -would  seem  as  if  the 
patent  vultc  face  which  is  so  deftly  executed 
argued  some  uncertainty  about  the  actual  prem- 
ises which  might  not  improbably  vitiate  the 
conclusions. 

If  there  is  really  the  manifest  difTcrence  be- 
tween the  several  component  parts  of  (Jenesis, 
for  example,  declared  to  be  visible  to  the  critical 
eye,  how  is  it  that  they  are   not  more  readily 


4  CLAIMS    OF   THE    OLD    TESTAMENT 

discernible  by  the  naked  eye  of  the  ordinary 
reader  ?  But  must  we  not  allow  that  the  ordi- 
nary reader  who  will  avail  himself  of  Dr.  Bis- 
sell's  "  Genesis  printed  in  Colors,"  will  not  only 
be  perplexed  to  distinguish  the  several  sections, 
but  also  receive  the  most  demonstrative  object- 
lesson  as  to  the  worthlessness  of  the  scholarship, 
or  at  least  the  judgment,  which  can  accept,  as 
valid,  conclusions  so  preposterous  ?  Is  it  pos- 
sible to  show  a  more  demonstrative  rcductio  ad 
ahsurdum  of  the  principles  it  is  proposed  to  illus- 
trate ?  Surely,  if  criticism  can  accept  this  with- 
out nausea,  the  taste  of  common-sense  must  be 
fastidious  indeed. 

It  is  considerations  such  as  these  that  lead  us  to 
conclude  that  there  must  be  some  other  principles 
in  operation  that  produce  a  result  so  clearly  out 
of  harmony  with  the  professions  so  loudly  made. 
If  the  Bible  is  the  possession  of  every  man,  then 
it  has  a  message  for  every  man,  and  every  man  is 
capable  of  judging  of  the  character  and  claims 
of  the  message.  But  if  the  message  of  the  Bible 
is  for  the  critic  alone,  then  no  one  else  needs  to 
trouble  himself  about  it.  But  it  is  because  the 
Bible  is  largely  felt  to  have  a  message  for  every 
man,  that  we  cannot  calmly  acquiesce  in  giving 
it  over  to  the  critics. 


CLAIMS    OF    THE   OLD    TKSTAMENT  5 

Atrain,  it   must   be   borne  in    mind   that   it  is 

with  the  Bible  as  with  every  othi'v  1 k;  tliat 

the  aspect  it  presents  cannot  but  vary  according  , 
as  it  is  approached  with  tru.st  or  with  sus}»icion. 
There  is  no  document  and  no  composition  that  is 
proof  against  unfavorable  treatment;  and  if  the 
lUble  is  read  with  the  intention  of  discrediting 
it,  there  is  no  prerogative  of  immunity  attaching 
to  it  which  will  avert  the  consequences. 

And  moreover  it  would  seem  to  be  unfair  to 
allow  the  presence  of  the  supernatural  in  the  • 
Old  and  New  Testaments  to  prejudice  the  case 
against  either,  inasmuch  as  it  is  this  which  is 
the  inherent  and  essential  character  of  their  • 
message.  They  manifestly  profess  to  come  with 
a  special  message  from  God,  and  it  is  not  on  ac- 
count of  this  profession  that  they  are  at  once  to 
be  rejected  ;  but  it  is  hard  to  see  how  the  reality 
of  the  message  can  be  guaranteed  except  by  the 
credentials  which  accompany  it.  The  fact  and 
signiticance  of  the  supernatural  in  Scripture  is 
the  matter  in  dispute,  and  to  decide  beforehand 
that  on  this  ground  Scripture  is  to  be  rejected,  is 
to  beg  an  initial  question  that  we  have  no  right 
to  grant.  By  all  means  let  us  treat  Scripture 
fairly  and  criticise  it  freely,  but  let  us  not  shut 
our  eyes  to  those  characteristics  which  difVeren- 


6       CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

tiate  it  from  all  other  literature,  and  which  there- 
fore constitute  part  of  its  inalienable  endowment, 
and  consequently  go  a  long  way  towards  estab- 
lishing its  claim.  To  enter  on  the  discussion 
with  a  bias  against  the  main  position  of  Scrip- 
ture is  to  render  ourselves  unfit  to  conduct  it. 

And  having  said  thus  much,  I  proceed  to  ask 
what  the  Old  Testament  is,  and  what  its  claims 
are  upon  our  attention.  Now,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, or  the  Old  Covenant,  as  it  ought  to  be  called, 
in  its  name  implies  two  things :  first,  that  it  is 
the  record  of  a  covenant  with  (itod  ;  and  secondly, 
that  it  is  old,  with  respect  to  one  that  is  newer. 
And  these  two  points  involve  the  whole  case 
with  reference  to  the  Old  Testament.  For  they 
imply  that  God  was  the  author  of  the  covenant 
recorded,  and  that  this  covenant  was  after  all 
only  preparatory  to  another ;  that  it  was  there- 
fore incomplete  and^mperfect^but  nevertheless 
possessed  the  virtual  promise  of  another.  And  it 
is  here  that  very  important  issues  are  involved  ; 
because  the  very  conception  of  God's  making  a 
covenant  with  any  person  or  people  implies  a 
conception  of  God  and  His  method  of  operation 
entirely  distinct  from  and  contrary  to  anything 
we  can  learn  of  God  in  nature.  Nature  and  her 
operations   are   indifferent   and  universal.      She 


CLAIMS   OF    THE    OLD    TFISTAMKNT  7 

troats  all  alike.  The  very  coneei»tioii  of  God's 
making  a  covenant  witli  any  person  or  people 
implies  selection,  favoritism,  exemiition  ;  the  very 
antithesis  of  the  universal  and  the  indiscrimi- 
nate. And  tliercfore  here,  apart  altogether  from 
any  supernatural  exhibition  of  power  or  action, 
there  is  involved  a  thought  wiiich  is  antagonistic 
to  anything  that  nature  as  the  administrator  of 
the  universal  has  to  teach  us  or  can  exhibit.  It 
is  impossible  to  conceive  of  God's  making  a  cove- 
nant without  supposing  Him  to  come  out  of  the 
darkness  and  obscurity  with  which  He  commonly 
shrouds  Himself  in  order  to  enter  into  special 
relations  with  those  to  whom  He  tlius  exception- 
ally draws  nigh.  And  this  of  itself,  apart  from 
anything  else,  involves  the  miraculous,  the  ex- 
traordinary, and  the  supernatural.  To  maintain, 
therefore,  that  on  this  account  the  record  of  such 
action  is  to  be  rejected  is  fatal  to  the  entire  pro- 
fessed revelation.  AVe  cannot  deal  with  it  with- 
out belying  its  essential  chara(;ter  and  credentials. 
And  any  further  action  toward  it  on  our  ])art  is 
disingenuous  and  unfair.  But  then,  secondly,  if 
the  sacred  writings  of  the  Jews  contain  the  record 
of  the  old  covenant  of  God,  that  of  itself  implies 
the  fact  that  He  has  made  a  new  one,  and  that 
the  one  was  preparatory  for  the  other.     And  as  a 


8       CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

matter  of  fact  the  actual  relation  subsisting  be- 
tween the  Old  Testament  and  the  New,  will  be 
for  all  time  the  conclusive  evidence  of  the  reality 
of  the  claims  of  both.  It  is  simply  impossible 
to  account  for  this  relation  in  all  its  essential 
features  as  a  merely  natural  phenomenon  and 
without  postulating  a  presiding,  directing,  and 
designing  agent  who,  independently  of  the  va- 
rious elements  co-operating  in  its  production,  has 
brought  it  about.  Consequently,  the  book  of 
the  old  covenant  bears  its  claim  upon  its  surface, 
and  we  cannot  disguise  the  fact  that  we  have  to 
deal  with  something  that  is  of  no  ordinary  char- 
acter, and  that  makes  no  ordinary  pretensions. 
The  book  of  the  old  covenant  is  nothing  if  it  is 
not  a  record  of  the  various  ways  in  which  God 
was  pleased  to  deal  with  a  particular  nation  for 
the  instruction  and  benefit  of  all,  and  with  special 
reference  to  His  action  in  the  future. 

What,  then,  are  some  of  the  chief  reasons  on 
account  of  which  we  are  disposed  to  acknowl- 
edge the  claims  of  the  Old  Testament  upon  our 
regard  ?  In  the  first  place,  there  is  tlie  apparent 
antiquity  of  its  historical  record.  Whether  this 
is  trustworthy  or  not,  there  is  nothing  in  all  lit- 
erature to  compare  with  it.  Here  we  have  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  human  history  from  the  very 


CLAIMS    OF   TIIK    OLD    TFSTAMF;NT  \> 

first.  Even  if  this  is  not  as  veracious  as  it  si/enis 
to  be,  it  is  at  least  iincoiitiadicted,  original,  and 
uiii([iu'.  There  are  no  similar  documents  to  call 
in  (juestion  its  statements,  or  to  dispute  its  aceu-  - 
racy.  We  know  absolutely  nothing  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  race  four  thousand  years  ago,  except 
what  the  Old  Testament  has  recorded.  The 
whole  extent  would  be  an  absolute  blank  were 
it  not  for  the  light,  such  as  it  is,  that  is  thrown 
upon  it  by  the  Old  Testament.  And  against  this 
we  have  nothing  whatever  to  set  but  conjecture 
and  uncertain  inferences  drawn  from  [)henomena 
of  uncertain  import. 

Again,  there  is  the  simplicity  and  comparative  > 
value  of  these  early  documents,  when  contrasted 
with  such  documents  as  we  have  of  a  like  kind 
among  other  nations.  Compare,  for  example,  the 
cosmosonies  of  Hesiod  or  of  Manu  with  those  of 
Genesis,  and  we  can  but  stand  amazed  at  the  sim- 
plicity and  sublimity  of  the  one,  and  the  mon- 
strosity, puerility,  and  absurdity  of  the  other.  In 
fact  there  is,  and  can  be,  no  comparison.  In  the 
one  case,  we  are  dealing  with  apparent  fact;  in 
the  other,  with  obvious  conjecture  and  with  })at- 
ent  falsehood.  The  first  verse  of  the  first  chap- 
ter of  Genesis  tells  us  that  which  is  antecedent 
to  and  independent  of  all  science,  which  is  rea- 


10      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

sonable  and  probable  in  itself,  which  furnishes  a 
basis  for  all  science,  but  is  contradicted  and  re- 
placed by  none.  We  may  well  ask,  then,  On 
whose  authority  is  this  stated  ?  If  it  is  false,  can 
we  disprove  it  ?  If  it  is  true,  how  did  it  enter  into 
the  mind  of  the  writer  to  utter  and  affirm  it  ?  If 
it  is  true,  how  did  it  happen  that  he  alone  of  all 
men  discovered  its  truth  ?  For  we  cannot  be 
persuaded  of  its  truth,  unless  there  is  authority 
for  believing  it  to  be  true ;  and  the  writer  could 
not  give  it  any  other  authority  than  that  on 
which  he,  himself,  received  it.  So  that  we  may 
state  the  matter  thus.  What  is  here  told  us  is 
either  true  or  not  true.  If  it  is  true  we  can  only 
hioiv  it  to  be  true  if  it  was  divinely  imparted  ; 
otherwise  it  must  be  conjectural,  and  may  or 
may  not  be  true.  Now,  as  there  is  nothing  to 
contradict  its  truth,  but  very  much  to  confirm  it, 
a  strong  presumption  is  created  in  favor  of  the 
claim  on  its  behalf ;  and  certainly  here  alone, 
among  all  statements  and  speculations  of  the 
kind  in  ancient  or  in  modern  times,  do  we  find 
anything  which  speaks  to  us  with  so  much  of 
the  majesty  of  truth  ;  which  surely  is  no  insig- 
nificant reason  for  believing  it  to  be  true,  and 
which  is  the  more  inconsistent  with  the  sup- 
position of  its  being  false. 


CLAIMS   OF   TlIK    OLD    TF.STAMKNT  11 

It  is,  lio\v(n'or,  only  tli<'  fi'W  lirst  cliaiitors  of 
Genesis  whicli  eoiiceni  tin;  rrico  as  a  whole.  As 
early  as  the  twelfth  chapter  the  horizon  becomes 
contracted,  and  henceforth  the  fortnnes  of  a 
single  people  only  are  related,  great  prominence 
being  given  to  the  history  of  the  first  father  of 
the  nation.  It  is  here  that  we  must  determine 
the  essential  character  of  the  narrative,  because 
our  decision  about  that  will  materially  afl'ect  the 
judgment  that  we  form  of  all  that  folhnvs.  The 
main  question  is  whether  it  is  myth  or  history  ; 
anil  liow  is  this  to  be  determined  ?  I  am  not 
aware  of  any  touchstone  by  which  we  can  infalli- 
bly discern  the  one  from  the  other,  simply  on  in- 
ternal and  a  j^riori  principles.  How  do  we  know 
that  Ciesar  and  Thucydides  are  true  ?  How  do 
we  know  that  Hamlet  and  King  Lear  are  not  ? 
Is  it  not  a  matter  of  evidence  and  traditional  tes- 
timony in  every  case  ?  And  where  there  is  room 
for  doubt,  how  can  the  doubt  be  resolved  l)ut  by 
the  weighing  of  the  evidence  for  and  against? 
Now,  there  is  absolutely  no  external  evidence  , 
against  the  story  of  Abraham,  —  though  we  have 
been  told  by  Butler,  but  often  forget  it,  that  there 
is  a  presumption  of  millions  to  one  against  the 
story  of  Ciesar  or  of  any  other  man,  —  and  it  is 
only  on  internal  prepossessions  that  this  story  can  . 


12      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

be  rejected.  But  inasmuch  as  it  professes  to  be 
the  record  of  Divine  manifestations,  it  is  clearly 
not  to  be  rejected  on  the  ground  that  it  professes 
to  record  them.  And  over  and  beyond  this,  the 
story  of  Abraham  has  this  fact  conspicuously  in 
its  favor,  that  it  contains  in  germ  the  explanation 
of  the  subsequent  national  history,  and  is  mar- 
vellously confirmed  by  the  corroboration  contin- 
uously afforded  by  that  history  up  to  the  present 
day.  Now,  it  is  conceivable  that  a  writer  in  the 
palmy  days  of  the  monarchy  might  have  sought 
to  illustrate  the  glory  of  the  national  throne  by 
inventing  a  narrative  like  that  of  Abraham,  sur- 
rounding it  with  an  imaginary  halo  of  romance 
and  myth  ;  but  allowing  the  possibility  of  this, 
we  are  still  at  a  loss  to  conceive  any  period  of 
the  national  life  at  which  the  promise  that  all 
nations  should  be  blessed  in  Abraham  could  have 
suggested  itself  to  any  mind  or  could  have 
derived  any  corroboration  from  the  actual  or 
probable  course  of  events.  And  yet  here,  on  the 
forefront  of  this  mythical  history,  we  find  this 
patent  and  daring  challenge  thrown  down  for 
posterity  to  verify  or  to  discredit.  And  we  may 
ask  with  confidence,  What  has  the  verdict  been  ? 
And  is  not  the  marvellous  correspondence  be- 
tween the  promise  and  the  facts  of  history  some- 


CLAIMS  OK  TUK    OLD  TKSTAMENT       13 

tlii::g  which  dclit's  cxphuiation  upon  any  nntural 
principles?  Ami  it'  so,  is  not  tliis  of  itself  the 
highest  testimony  to  the  cliaracter  of  the  original 
narrative,  and  does  it  not  create  a  distinct  pre- 
sumption in  its  favor  ?  I  do  not  see  how  we  are 
to  explain  the  fact  of  this  promise,  many  times 
repeated  in  the  Genesis  history  and  referred  to  in 
the  subsequent^  literature,  but  on  the  assump- 
tion tliat  it  was  given  under  the  circumstances 
recorded  ;  in  which  case  we  need  hesitate  no  more 
on  account  of  any  other  supernatural  incidents 
by  which  it  was  accompanied.  Indeed,  any  other 
incidents  of  the  kind  can  only  be  regarded  as 
tending  to  confirm  the  reality  of  the  promise  and 
the  facts  of  its  divine  origin. 

And  here  perhaps  it  is  right  to  say  a  word 
about  the  much  abused  term  "  supernatural." 
The  Duke  of  Argyll,  in  his  admirable  l)ook  on  the 
"  Philosophy  of  Belief,"  dwells  upon  the  error  of 
distinguishing  between  the  natural  and  the  super- 
natural. But  surely,  however  open  to  objection 
scientifically  this  may  be,  confusion  and  miscon- 
ception only  can  arise  if  we  decline  to  distinguish 
them.  For  instance,  unless  we  use  "  nature  "  to 
include  not  only  the  whole  area  of  perceptive 
knowledge  and  experience,  but  everything  besides 

1  Micali  vii.  20. 


14  CLAIMS    OF   THE    OLD   TESTAMENT 

that  is  not  "  dreamt  of  in  our  philosophy,"  we 
must  admit  the  distinction,  iiowever  incorrect  or 
misleading  in  the  scientific  sense  it  may  be.  For 
example,  I  suppose  no  one  would  affirm  that  the 
birth  of  Isaac,  under  the  circumstances  recorded, 
was  a  natural  event  or  capable  of  natural  ex- 
planation any  more  than  the  fact  of  the  Lord's 
speaking  to  Abraham  out  of  heaven  was,  however 
much  we  may  choose  to  include  both  events  under 
the  term  "natural,"  as  embracing  everything  that 
has  ever  occurred.  If  this  can  rightly  be  done 
without  impinging  upon  the  historic  truth  of  the 
narrative,  well  and  good ;  but  as  I  strongly  sus- 
pect it  cannot,  then  we  must  be  very  careful  to 
contend  for  the  facts  recorded,  whether  we  call 
them  natural  or  supernatural.  What  I  want  to 
know  is,  did  these  two  events  ever  take  place  ? 
Does  the  narrative  intend  us  to  believe  that  they 
did  ?  Is  it  right  and  true  in  that  intention  ?  and 
if  it  is,  how  far  are  we  right  in  drawing  the  in- 
ference that  they  were  intended  to  establish  the 
reality  of  the  divine  communications  given,  and  did 
establish  it?  And  is  there  any  other  legitimate 
inference  that  we  can  draw  ?  And  the  question 
herein  involved  is  one  that  will  perpetually  con- 
front us  throughout  the  Scripture  narrative,  and 
therefore,  sooner  or  later,  we  must  deal  with  it ; 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      15 

for  instance,  if  iuiwIutc  else,  at  li-ast  in  the  facts 
of  our  Lord's  life.  If  that  can  he  rediKH'd  to  the 
dimensions  of  the  natural,  without  any  forfeiture 
of  literal  historic  trutli,  then  I  am  willing  to  sur- 
render the  term  "  supernatural  "  ;  but  unless  that 
can  be  done,  no  good  will  ensue  from  the  desire 
to  blink  the  necessity  of  using  it,  for  we  cannot 
afford  to  do  so.  And  with  regard  to  the  like  nar- 
ratives of  the  Old  Testament,  either  their  historic 
veracity  is  a  matter  of  no  importance,  or  else  their 
liistoric  truth  is  absolutely  discredited  by  the 
statements  that  involve  the  supernatural ;  for 
it  is  inconsistent  to  accept,  for  instance,  the 
reality  of  the  promise  to  Abraham,  and  reject  the 
narrative  concerning  the  birth  of  Isaac. 

On  the  other  hand,  one  is  quite  willing  to 
admit  that  the  acceptance  of  the  supernatural  in 
the  narratives,  for  its  own  sake,  is  to  stop  short 
of  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  narrated,  which 
manifestly  is  with  the  intention  of  confirming  the 
reality  of  the  spiritual  facts  with  which  these 
narratives  are  associated,  and  which  they  illus- 
trate. Take  for  example  the  narrative  of  the 
passage  of  th<^  Jordan  by  the  Israelites.  I  sup- 
pose no  one  will  deny  that  that  is  related,  and  was 
always  accepted,  as  a  supernatural  fact  intended 
to  confirm  the  promise  of  God,  and  to  show  forth 


16      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

His  special  providence  with  regard  to  Israel. 
Now,  the  Duke  of  Argyll  says  that  the  Jordan  ran 
dry  in  the  thirteenth  century  of  our  era,  owing 
to  the  falling  of  rock  (p.  215),  and  uses  that  fact  as 
an  illustration  of  what  may  have  taken  place 
at  the  passage  of  the  Israelites.  But  surely  this 
is  to  deal  unfairly  with  the  Scripture  narrative. 
Let  it  be  granted  that  purely  natural  causes 
operated  in  both  cases.  Even  then  there  are 
many  circumstances  in  the  Scripture  narrative 
not  explained :  for  instance,  the  statement  of 
Joshua  that  within  three  days  the  host  should 
pass  over  Jordan ;  that  when  the  priests'  feet 
touched  the  water  the  waters  retreated  and  re- 
mained divided  till  all  the  host  had  passed  over; 
and  the  like.  If  we  accept  the  narrative  at  all, 
we  must  accept  these  facts ;  but  if  we  accept 
these  facts,  and  even  suppose  them  to  be  suscep- 
tible of  natural  explanation,  we  have  not  ex- 
plained the  significance  with  which  they  were 
supposed  to  be  fraught,  and  without  which  they 
were  worthless  in  themselves,  and  productive  only 
of  error  and  misconception  alike  in  the  mind  of 
the  people  and  in  that  of  the  narrator.  In  short, 
this  would  be  to  suppose  that  the  Almighty 
made  use  of  delusion  and  deception,  and  that  for 
the  purpose  of  confirming  the  truth  of  His  own 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TKSTAMKNT      17 

word.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that,  pare  down 
the  supernatural  as  we  may,  and  explain  it  as 
only  another  phase  of  the  natural,  we  nnist 
eventually  admit  the  reality  of  an  essential  dil'ler- 
ence  between  them,  unless  we  are  prepared  to 
reject  the  narratives ;  as,  for  example,  in  the  ulti- 
mate instance,  witli  the  resurrection  of  Christ. 
This  either  was  or  was  not  a  literal  fact ;  if  it 
was  a  literal  fact,  then  it  was  in  no  ordinary 
sense  a  natural  one ;  if  it  was  not  a  literal  fact, 
then  we  must  reject  the  narrative,  or  are  com- 
mitted to  the  belief  of  a  lie  in  accepting  it.  The 
natural  and  the  supernatural,  therefore,  as  I  take 
it,  are  not  synonymous.  There  may  be  a  whole- 
some dread  of  the  marvellous  for  its  own  sake, 
and  a  revulsion  against  supposing  that,  because 
we  do  not  stumble  at  the  supernatural,  there- 
fore we  are  believers ;  but  at  the  same  time  that 
belief  is  not  worthy  of  the  name  which  insists 
upon  expunging  every  miracle  and  wonder  alike 
from  the  Christian  creed  and  the  Scripture  record. 
I  do  not  understand  how  belief  in  any  sense  can 
avoid  being  committed  to  the  acceptance  of  cer- 
tain facts  which  defy  all  natural  explanation, 
whether  we  call  them  miraculous,  or  s[)iritual,  or 
what  not. 

There  is  also  another  point  in  which  a  good 
2 


18      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

deal  of  loose  thought  appears  to  be  current  in  the 
present  day,  and  that  is  the  essential  connection 
between  historic  events  and  s]:)iritnal  and  moral 
truth.  For  example,  it  is  asked,  "  What  do  we 
lose  if  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  were  mythical 
personages,  with  no  historic  existence  ?  Do  not 
the  spiritual  lessons  remain  which  their  narra- 
tives illustrate  ?  The  example  of  Abraham's  faith 
abides,  whether  he  is  imaginary  or  real,  just  as 
the  evil  of  marital  jealousy  remains  whether 
Othello  was,  or  was  not,  merely  the  creation  of 
Shakespeare's  brain."  But  this  appears  to  me  to 
betray  a  very  unsatisfactory  and  vague  concep- 
tion of  the  necessary  conditions  of  the  problem  to 
be  solved.  Let  it  be  granted  that  the  example  of 
faith  is  the  essential  element  in  the  story  of 
Abraham  ;  but  let  us  also  suppose  that  Abraham 
was  a  mythical  personage,  with  no  real  existence. 
Then  clearly  the  command  which  he  obeyed  and 
the  promise  which  he  believed  were  unreal  too, 
as  also  was  his  obedience  and  his  belief.  Our 
position  would  then  be  this  :  "  Had  Abraham  acted 
under  the  conditions  supposed,  as  he  is  said  to 
have  acted,  we  have  from  the  blessing  promised 
upon  his  faith  the  corresponding  advantage  that 
may  be  expected  to  accrue  to  us  from  the  like 
obedience  and  belief.     The  teaching  of  the  narra- 


CLAIMS   OF   TIIK    OLD    TKSTAMHNT  TJ 

tive  is  equally  distinct  and  elociuent,  whetluir 
true  or  falso."  Very  well ;  hut  if  the  narrative  is 
imaginary,  so  also  may  be  the  lessons  derived  fmm 
it.  We  do  not  care  to  know  what  conceivably 
might  be  the  case  under  certain  circumstances ; 
we  want  to  know  what  actually  was  the  case 
under  tliese  circumstances  as  described.  If  God 
did  not  act  as  He  is  said  to  have  acted  in  the  case 
of  Al)raham,  how  do  we  know  that  He  will  act  in 
the  like  manner  in  our  own  case  ?  What  inoof 
have  we  that  He  cares  at  all  about  how  we  do 
act?  Because  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  if 
the  history  of  Abraham  is  dissipated  in  this  way, 
there  is  no  reason  why  any  other  like  narrative 
may  not  be  in  like  manner  dissipated  and  de- 
stroyed, n  the  ground  of  faith  is  thus  relegated 
to  the  merely  spiritual,  impalpable,  and  intan- 
gible, apart  altogether  from  the  concrete,  visil)le 
and  substantial  authority  which  vouches  for  it, 
there  ceases  to  be  any  valid  foundation  at  all 
for  it,  in  the  experimental  and  the  real.  Then 
there  is  no  necessity  for  God  to  confirm  His  word 
with  signs  following,  and  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  He  ever  did. 
Even  in  the  time  of  Christ  mankind  had  not 
emerged  from  this  pernicious  and  childish  hal)it 
of  believing  in  signs,  and  in  Old  Testament  times 


20      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

they  were  immersed  in  it.  For  us  there  has  been 
reserved  the  far  higher  calling  to  dispense  alto- 
gether with  signs  in  the  present,  and  to  discredit 
the  reality  of  those  which  are  said  to  have  been 
given  in  the  past.  Faith,  if  it  is  real,  and  in  pro- 
portion as  it  is,  can  dispense  altogether  with  an 
historic  basis  to  rest  on.  There  is  no  question 
but  that  this  is  the  direction  in  which  men's 
thoughts  are  largely  moving.  But  is  there  not  a 
manifest  and  pernicious  fallacy  in  the  reasoning? 
Because  it  is  perfectly  true  that  God  would  have 
us  be  independent  of  signs,  does  He  intend  us  to 
believe  that  signs  have  never  been  given  ?  Does 
He  wish  us  to  suppose  that  those  which  are 
alleged  to  have  been  given  were  fallacious,  and 
that  it  matters  nothing  whether  they  were  real 
or  not  ?  If  so,  surely  not  only  the  Old  Testament, 
but  the  New  likewise  must  be  written  again 
de  novo.  Then  not  only  may  we  pass  by  the 
miracles  of  Christ  as  of  no  moment,  but  we  must 
also  believe  that  He  never  really  wrought  them, 
and  never  actually  appealed  to  them  ;  that  in  all 
these  cases  there  was  nothing  more  than  tempo- 
rary and  apparent  concession  to  human  weakness. 
But  then,  in  that  case,  we  must  likewise  deal  in 
some  intelligible  way  with  His  birth.  His  life. 
His  resurrection,  and  His  ascension. 


CLAIMS    OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  21 

It  sceins  to  me  that  the  true  point  in  ^vl^ic•h 
the  purely  spiritual  aiul  the  real  aud  actual 
meet,  is  the  death  of  Christ.  The  solid  ground 
on  whicli  faith  rests  as  a  sure  foundation  is  the 
death  of  Christ.  That  death,  regarded  merely  in 
its  historic  aspect  in  relation  to  the  recorded  acts 
and  words  of  Jesus,  points  us  unmistakably  to 
something  above  and  beyond  nature,  to  some- 
thing in  the  Divine,  which  speaks  by  it  and  yet 
dill'ers  from  it,  as  Fatherhood  differs  from  wor- 
ship. And  if  this  is  so,  then  there  is  but  one 
way  of  interpreting  the  darkness  and  the  earth- 
quake ;  namely,  as  the  recognition  by  the  God  of 
nature  of  the  justice  with  which  the  sinless  suf- 
ferer claimed  to  be  the  Son  of  God.  Here  we 
have  most  conspicuously  the  mingling  of  the  nat- 
ural and  the  supernatural;  of  tliat  which  was 
purely  and  simply  human  and  ordinary  with 
that  which  was  essentially  superhuman  and 
miraculous,  supernatural  and  divine. 

But  if  you  recognize  the  two  elements  here,  is 
it  only  here  that  we  may  recognize  them  ?  And 
if  it  is,  as  I  believe  it  to  be,  impossible  not  to 
recognize  them  here,  may  not  the  same  be  said 
with  equal  justice  of  many  other  events  and 
incidents  recorded  alike  in  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New  ?     When,  however,  we  have  estab- 


22  CLAIMS    OF    THE    OLD   TESTAMENT 

lislied  a  firm  foothold  on  the  mere  historic  feat- 
ures and  incidents  of  the  death  of  Christ  and 
recognized  that  to  which  they  unmistakably 
point,  it  is  not  many  steps  further  to  lay  equally 
firm  hold  of  the  resurrection  and  ascension  of 
the  Lord  Jesus.  When  we  have  taken  in  the 
full  significance  of  the  one,  it  is  surely  somewhat 
less  hard  to  see  how  naturally  the  one  leads  on 
to  the  other,  and  the  one  is  followed  on  and  sup- 
plemented by  the  other. 

It  is  surely  considerations  such  as  these  which 
may  serve  to  give  us  pause  before  we  acquiesce 
with  too  great  facility  in  the  opinion  of  those  who 
ask  complacently,  "  What  if,  after  all,  it  should 
turn  out  that  it  has  been  part  of  God's  plan  in  the 
past  to  teach  us  by  myth  ?  "  To  which  I  would 
reply  by  two  other  questions:  What  if  it  should, 
after  all,  not  turn  out  that  such  has  been  his  plan  ? 
And  what  about  the  death  of  Christ?  Was 
that  a  myth  ?  Or  is  it  a  certain  fact  that  the 
mere  naked  historic  incidents  of  that  tremendous 
act  do  point  us  unmistakably  to  further  truths, 
which  would,  however,  most  undeniably  cease 
to  be  true  if  the  actuality  of  those  incidents 
could  be  called  in  question,  —  if,  that  is,  they 
themselves  were  mythical  ?  So  manifest  is  it 
tliat   those   who   recklessly   use   such   language 


CLAIMS   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  23 

with  regard  to  tlio  Old  Tostimu'iit  have  not 
counted  the  cost  of  their  tno  lilmid  concessions, 
and,  what  is  more,  liave  not  fairly  estimated  the 
essential  foundations  on  which  their  own  i)ro- 
fessed  l)elief  rests.  Piofore  we  are  asked  to  admit 
that  it  may  be  part  of  the  Divine  plan  to  teach 
by  myth,  even  as  Christ  taught  by  i)arables,  let 
us  inquire  the  more  earnestly  what  evidence  there 
is  that  He  has  done  so,  and  let  us  not  at  once  as- 
sume it,  as  a  fact,  merely  because  it  falls  in  con- 
veniently with  certain  theories  which  are  abso- 
lutely fatal  to  the  historic  validity  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament as  a  whole.  Are  we  prepared  to  accept 
the  Old  Testament  as  merely  the  story-book  of 
the  Jewish  race  in  its  infancy,  and  to  extract 
from  it  only  so  much  ethical  wisdom  as  is  con- 
sistent with  our  own  preconceived  and  advanced 
notions  of  what  is  wise  and  true ;  or  are  we  will- 
ing to  regard  it  rather  as  the  record  of  special 
Divine  dealing  with  a  race  favored  and  chosen 
for  the  express  purpose  of  thereby  teaching  the 
whole  human  family,  and  as  revealing  the  foun- 
dations in  history  and  literature  upon  which 
God  would  afterwards  erect  the  permanent  edi- 
fice of  the  Christian  Church  and  Iniild  up  the 
temple  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ?  For  then, 
manifestly,  in    whatever  degree  the   Old   Testa- 


24      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

meiit  is  this,  it  must  stand  to  reason  that  we 
cannot  with  equanimity  regard  those  hypotheses 
which  assume,  without  proving,  that  these  foun- 
dations are  unstable  and  unsound,  and  would 
thereby  substitute  a  basis  of  lies  for  the  substra- 
tum of  fact  on  which  it  claims  to  rest. 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  cannot  fairly  under- 
stand the  essential  questions  that  underlie  the 
acceptance  of  the  narratives  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New  Testament  alike  without  determin- 
ing these  two  points :  first,  whether  the  ordi- 
nary laws  of  nature  ever  have  historically  been 
infringed,  violated,  set  aside,  or  what  you  will ; 
and  secondly,  whether  this  has  ever  been  done  for 
the  express  purpose  of  accrediting  the  Divine 
word  and  promises  in  a  way  that  otherwise  it 
would  seem  impossible  that  they  should  be  ac- 
credited. It  is  not  the  rejection  of  this  or  that 
narrative  in  either  volume  of  Scripture,  but  the 
rejection  of  the  whole  tenor  of  Scripture  through, 
out  from  first  to  last,  that  alone  is  adequate,  if 
we  are  to  answer  these  questions  in  the  nega- 
tive. Christ  undovibtedly  appealed  to  His  mighty 
works  in  their  physical  as  well  as  their  moral 
aspect,  in  confirmation  of  the  claims  He  advanced. 
Was  He  justified  in  doing  this  or  not  ?  If  He  was, 
did  He  not  thereby  virtually  set  His  seal  to  the 


CLAIMS    OF   TlIK    OLD    TESTAMENT  25 

]iriii(iiile  that  we  arc  not  wroiif;  in  bclievinii  tliat 
(Jod's  word  may  be  conlirnied  by  si;,Mis  following? 
And  with  regard  to  the  limits  of  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural,  which  it  is  so  diihcult  to 
define,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  a  com- 
bination of  purely  natural  incidents  occurring 
naturally  may  be  interpreted,  and  be  meant  to  be 
interpreted,  as  giving  Divine  corroboration  of  a 
particular  principle  or  course  of  action  no  less  con- 
vincing and  conclusive  than  the  direct  apparent 
suspension  or  infringement  of  known  natural  law 
would  do.  The  question  really  at  issue  is,  Under 
what  conditions  may  we  recognize  the  special 
declaration  of  the  Divine  will  as  intentionally 
communicated  to  us  ?  Is  it  ever  legitimate  to  do 
so,  or  is  it  mere  superstition  and  self-deception  in 
every  case  ?  If  so,  then  it  stands  to  reason  that 
we  must  tling  away  the  IJible  as  a  worthless 
record ;  but  if  otherwise,  then  it  may  chance 
that  there  is  no  other  record  or  collection  of 
records  so  calculated  and  designed  to  direct  us 
aright  in  this  matter  as  are  these.  It  is  in  that 
belief  that  I  accept  the  New  Testament  and  try 
to  study  the  complex  literature  of  the  Old,  as 
the  divinely  designed  preparation  for  the  more 
complete  revelation  which  was  to  confirm  and 
fulfil  its  promises  and  hopes. 


26  CLAIMS   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT 

Now,  if  the  Bible  is  a  layman's  book,  as  it  is 
alleged  to  be,  it  stands  to  reason  that  its  defects 
or  fallacies  must  be  as  patent  to  the  layman  as 
they  are  to  the  critic.  But  I,  as  a  layman,  want 
to  learn  whether  I  may  frankly  accept  the  Old 
Testament  in  its  traditional  character  as  a 
Divinely  authorized  narrative  of  the  events  it 
records,  or  must  regard  it  as  so  modified  and 
conditioned  by  traditional  error  and  human  mis- 
interpretation as  to  be  utterly  untrustworthy  in 
its  narrative  of  these  events.  The  critic  tells  me 
explicitly  that  this  is  what  he  finds  the  Bible  to 
be,  and  gives  sundry  reasons  for  it,  which  he 
says  I,  as  a  layman,  am  able  to  appreciate.  But 
it  so  happens  that,  in  a  multitude  of  cases,  I 
altogether  dispute  his  conclusions  and  am 
wholly  unconvinced  by  the  reasons  assigned. 
Of  course  neither  he  nor  I  am  concerned  to 
maintain  the  absolute  inerrancy  of  every  his- 
torical statement  in  the  Old  Testament,  as,  for 
example,  the  number  and  names  of  Esau's  wives, 
and  the  like ;  but  I  do  very  much  want  to  know 
whether,  for  example,  the  narrative  of  the  first 
ten  chapters  of  Exodus  gives  a  correct  or  incor- 
rect account  of  the  events  recorded,  whether  the 
part  ascribed  to  the  Divine  action  is  imaginary 
or  real,  whether  the  writer  or  the  actor,  wlioemr 


CLAIMS    OF   TIIK    OLD    TESTAMENT  27 

he  iciis,  exceeded  his  coinniissiou  in  n])|)('aliiiff  so 
contidently  to  tlie  iiatne  of  God.  This  is  liy  no 
means  a  (question  merely  of  age  and  anthdrsliip, 
as  regards  the  books,  as  Dr.  Driver  chooses  to 
represent  it  (cf.  Int.  p.  xix)  ;  it  is  sini[tly  a 
question  of  truth  or  falsehood;  and  I,  as  an  inter- 
ested layman,  am  determined  to  accept  no  middle 
position.  Either  it  was  God  who  brought  Israel 
out  of  Egypt  (Num.  xxiii.  22),  or  that  deliv- 
erance was  an  accidental  escape  with  which  the 
finger  of  God  had  nothing  whatever  to  do,  and 
which  the  historian  therefore  has  entirely  mis- 
represented. Now  I  want  to  know  whether 
Moses  and  the  Israelites  had  any  more  ground 
for  recognizing  the  hand  of  God  in  their  deliv- 
erance than  Cromwell  had  in  the  battles  of 
Dunbar  and  Worcester,  —  that  is  to  say,  does 
faith  create  its  own  basis  of  belief,  or  is  there 
an  external  and  objective  ground  on  which  it 
rests,  whicli  faith  perceives  and  apprehends  but 
does  not  create,  and  may  we  recognize  in  the 
Scripture  narrative  the  voucher  for  such  a 
ground,  and  find  such  an  instance  of  it  as  we 
cannot  find  in  the  history  of  Cromwell  ?  If  we 
may,  then  have  we  in  Scripture  such  a  guaran- 
teed objective  ground  of  faith  as  we  can  rely  on, 
and  that  because  this  its  ordained  function  is  not 


28  CLAIMS    OF   THE    OLD    TESTAMENT 

of  man,  but  of  God.  But  has  the  Scripture  this 
function,  and  how  do  we  know  that  it  has  it  ? 
Only  because  of  its  own  inherent  testimony  to 
that  effect,  and  of  the  credentials  which  it  is  able 
to  present.  But  it  stands  to  reason  that  unless 
the  narrative  of  the  exodus  is  ultimately  from 
the  chief  personal  actor  in  it,  we  cannot  ascribe 
to  it  the  authority  requisite  for  its  being  trust- 
worthy ;  and  hence  the  inevitable  consequence 
that  if  the  narrative  is  five  or  six  centuries  after 
the  period  of  the  exodus,  it  cannot  possibly  serve 
as  a  voucher  for  the  correctness  of  the  state- 
ments it  so  daringly  ascribes  to  God,  but  sinks 
to  the  level  of  Cromwell's  belief  about  Dunbar 
and  Worcester.  It  is  to  me  a  matter  of  simple 
astonishment  that  people  do  not  see  that  unless 
we  have  an  objective  basis  for  faith,  there  is 
nothing  for  faith  to  rest  on,  and  in  this  case 
such  an  objective  basis  cannot  be  given  by  an 
unknown  and  unauthorized  narrative  such  as  a 
work  of  the  ninth  century  B.C.  would  necessarily 
be,  but  only  by  a  narrative  sufhciently  expressing 
the  declared  word  of  God,  and  recording  with 
sufficient  accuracy  the  veritable  acts  of  God. 

And  it  has  further  to  be  borne  in  mind  that 
in  whatever  way  we  conceive  of  a  revelation 
being  conveyed  to  man,  such  as  that  for  example 


CLAIMS    OV   TllH    (>LU    TESTAMENT  29 

of  tlie  Mosaic  record  of  tl\e  exodus,  two  con- 
ditions would  seem  to  be  absolutely  essential, — 
nanioly,  first,  tlie  accuracy  of  the  recorded  facts; 
and,  secondly,  the  attitude  indispensable  for 
accepting  them,  which  is  one  of  faith.  For  sup- 
pose a  revelation  of  plenary  Divine  authority 
imparted  to  man,  it  must  either  be  so  given  as 
to  compel  acceptance,  or  it  must  be  dependent  on 
the  faith  of  man  to  be  accepted.  Now,  no  one 
pretends  that  the  supposed  revelation  of  God  is 
a  matter  of  demonstration ;  if  it  were,  it  wouUl 
not  1)0  possible  to  reject  it,  in  which  case  it 
would  fail  as  a  moral  test;  consequently,  in 
whatever  way  the  revelation  was  presented  it 
would  necessarily  appeal  to  faitli.  Clearly,  there- 
fore, if  the  history  of  the  exodus  was  intended 
as  a  revelation  of  special  Divine  action  and  the 
record  of  it,  there  would  be  the  necessity  not 
only  of  its  historic  accuracy,  but  also  for  the 
requisite  disposition  of  mind  to  accept  it.  lUit  if 
its  accuracy,  not  merely  in  detail,  l)ut  in  its 
special  characteristic  as  revealing  the  will  and 
working  of  God,  were  called  in  question,  it  would 
fail  altogether  of  its  professedly  designed  result 
as  a  revelation.  But  it  is  exactly  this  that  is 
called  in  question,  if  the  form  of  the  record  is 
five  or  six  centuries  after  the  tinie  ;  and  conse- 


30      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

quently  the  ground  of  our  belief  in  the  narrative 
is  absolutely  destroyed,  for  we  cannot  be  sure  of 
the  facts,  and  more  especially  of  that  fact  which 
is  the  most  important  of  all,  namely,  that  the 
events  recorded  truly  represent  the  operation  of 
the  Divine  will.  Not  only  are  we  uncertain  as 
to  what  God  said  unto  Moses,  but  we  do  not  even 
know  that  He  spake  unto  him  at  all,  or  that  He 
was  in  any  way  to  be  identified  with,  or  held 
responsible  for,  the  course  and  tenor  of  the 
events.  It  is  therefore  all  moonshine  to  say 
that  if  we  destroy  the  "  form  "  of  the  revelation, 
the  "fact"  remains  untouched;^  because  no  fact 
at  all  remains,  except  so  much  as  we  choose  to 
concede  to  popular  prejudice,  resting  as  it  does  in 
the  mere  word  "  revelation  "  without  any  specific 
authority  whatever. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  the  critics  should 
be  "  brought  to  book "  in  this  respect,  and  be 
compelled  to  tell  us  what  it  is  they  really  mean 
by  revelation,  and  with  what  amount  of  belief  in 
Holy  Scripture  their  conclusions  are  ultimately 
compatible.  They  first  of  all  dissipate  in  toto  the 
traditional  authority  of  the  canon,  whether  it  be 
in  relation  to  the  Pentateuch,  Daniel,  Joel,  Jonah, 
or  any  other  book  contained  therein,  and  show  that 
1  See  Driver,  lut.  p.  xvi. 


CLAIMS   OF   TIIR    OLD   TESTAMENT  31 

all  such  grounds  of  authority  are  purely  imagi- 
nary ;  ami  having  therel)y  demonstrated,  as  they 
suppose,  the  entirely  untrustworthy  character  of 
the  history  and  the  external  authority  of  the 
prophets,  they  continue  to  talk  about  revelation 
as  if  it  were  a  thing  that  could  lloat  in  the  air 
without  any  foundation  whatever  to  rest  on. 
Having  first  entirely  shattered  the  traditional 
authority  of  the  word  of  God,  they  continue 
to  speak  of  that  word  as  though  it  could  be 
not  only  independent  of  all  external  testimony, 
but  was  moreover  a  thing  so  evident  and  unques- 
tionable in  itself  as  to  be  able  to  laugh  to  scorn 
every  critical  result  which  was  fatal  to  its  received 
authority  and  to  its  traditional  pretensions. 

Let  me  make  myself  clearly  understood.  I 
place  no  barrier  against  criticism  the  most 
searching  and  impartial ;  by  all  means  let  us 
treat  the  Bible  like  any  other  book.  I  ask  for 
no  reservation  in  its  favor  ;  but,  nevertheless,  I 
feel  most  deeply  that  it  is  not  on  grounds  such 
as  those  which  the  critics  advance  that  the 
established  position  of  the  Bible  is  to  be  sur- 
rendered, even  if  it  be  that  some  of  the  tradi- 
tional safeguards  may  be  invalid,  and  that  all 
may  need  modification  and  readjustment.  T 
believe    that    many    of   the    critical   conclusions 


32  CLAIMS   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT 

are  unsound,  and  that  many  more  are  unproven ; 
and  I  believe  it  to  be  wholly  disingenuous  and 
unfair  to  affirm  and  reaffirm  statements  on  the 
authority  of  those  conclusions  which  are  in 
themselves  not  only  irreconcilable  with  Apos- 
tolic affirmations,  but  also  absolutely  fatal  to  the 
kind  of  substantial  validity  that  is  throughout 
assumed  for  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New. 
And  therefore  it  is  wholly  impossible  to  discuss 
these  questions  as  if  nothing  of  any  importance 
depended  on  their  issue ;  because  the  faith  and 
authority  of  Christ  is  involved  in  them,  and  we 
must  either  be  prepared  to  let  that  faith  go  as  a 
thing  of  no  value,  or  we  must  be  prepared  to 
adopt  the  ground  which  many  seem  disposed  to 
-suggest;  which  is  not  "I  believe  what  T  believe 
because  it  is  tme  and  I  believe  it  to  be  truc^' 
but  "  I  believe  certain  things  though  I  see  there 
is  ground  to  believe  they,  or  many  of  them,  are 
not  true,  and  I  intend  to  continue  to  believe  them 
because  in  many  ways  it  is  expedient  to  do  so, 
even  though  they  be  not  true,  or  there  is  ground 
for  questioning  whether  they  are  so.  In  short, 
I  hold  my  faith  in  solution,  and  am  content 
to  do  so."  Critics  and  philosophers  may  be  left 
to  decide  whether  this  is  critical  or  philosoph- 
ical.     I  believe  it  to  be  absolutely  opposed   to 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      33 

tlii3  mind  and  toaching  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  I  am  determined  to  seek  some  better  basis 
for  my  faith  tliau  thai  which  destructive  criti- 
cism can  supply. 

For  example,  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  say 
that  he  accepts  tlie  Apostles'  Creed,  and  theoreti- 
cally to  disbelieve  in  the  supernatural.  Neither 
do  I  see  how  it  is  })ossible  for  a  man  to  acknowl- 
edge the  literal  meaning  of  the  word  "  Christ," 
and  reject  that  basis  of  Divine  prophecy,  promise, 
and  action  in  the  Old  Testament  without  which 
that  word  has  no  real  significance.  Some  minds 
take  delight  in  dissolving  and  analyzing  these 
elements.  I  confess  that  I  prefer  to  rest  on 
the  substantial  constructive  basis  that  they  pre- 
sent, and  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  they  inevi- 
tably indicate  and  point  to,  dissolve  and  analyze 
them  as  we  may. 

It  is  symptomatic  of  much  of  the  thought  of 
the  present  day  that  those  miraculous  elements 
in  the  Gospels,  for  instance,  which  at  the  time 
were  doubtless  given  and  received  as  confirma- 
tory of  its  message,  are  now  regarded  as  the 
main  obstacle  in  its  reception.  There  must 
surely  be  something  wrong  here.  In  the  first 
place  we  may  well  question  how  far  the  gospel 
can  be  received  apart  from  its  miraculous  setting, 
3 


34      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

or  what  sort  of  a  gospel  that  is  that  remains 
after  the  miraculous  has  been  rejected ;  and 
secondly,  this  important  fact  remains,  that  the 
belief  in  the  miraculous  is  not  proposed  as  an 
end  in  itself,  but  is  intended  to  point  and  lead 
up  to  something  which  is  higher  and  beyond  the 
miracle  itself,  and  which,  if  it  is  not  grasped,  the 
miracle  itself  is  worthless  ;  and  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  if  this  end  is  apprehended,  the 
miracle  may  be  largely  left  to  take  care  of  itself. 
It  is  more  to  believe  in  Christ  than  it  is  to 
believe  that  He  turned  water  into  wine  or  fed 
five  thousand  with  a  few  loaves  and  fishes  ;  but 
it  is  equally  hard  to  determine  what  kind  of 
faith  in  Christ  that  would  be,  or  whether  it 
could  rightly  be  called  faith  at  all,  which  pro- 
fessed to  believe  in  Him  and  yet  stumbled  at 
the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand  or  the  miracle 
of  Cana  in  Galilee.  If  one  believes  in  Christ 
one  believes  in  His  mighty  works.  He  himself 
contemplates  belief  in  His  mighty  works  without 
belief  in  Him.  I  hardly  think  it  can  be  said  that 
He  contemplates  a  belief  in  Him  which  would 
reject  His  mighty  works.  "  Believe  me  that  I 
am  in  the  Father  and  the  Father  in  me ;  or  else 
believe  me  for  the  very  works'  sake." 

And  this,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  true  posi- 


CLAIMS   OF   TllH   OLD   THSTAMKXT  35 

tiou  with  regard  to  the  miracuhnis.  It  is 
involved  in  sincere  belief  in  Cliri.st,  and  though 
that  belief  may  not  l)e  based  on  the  miraculous, 
it  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  independent  of  it. 
If  we  ask  whether  the  miracles  prove  the  Gospel 
or  the  (Jospel  proves  the  miracles  we  may  decide 
in  favor  of  both  ;  and  certainly  if  the  Gospel 
proves  the  miracles,  as  it  surely  does,  we  can- 
not refuse  to  admit  that  the  miracles  confirm  the 
Gospel.  They  are  mutually  dependent,  though 
the  order  of  them  may  be  doubtful  in  point  of 
evidence. 

It  may  seem  that  I  have,  to  a  certain  extent, 
wandered  from  the  question  I  proposed  to  con- 
sider, in  thus  mixing  up  the  Old  and  New  Tes- 
taments in  the  discussion;  but,  in  point  of  fact, 
the  ground  is  common  to  both.  There  is  an 
indestructible  connection  between  the  Old  Tes- 
tament and  the  New,  which  it  is  impossible  to 
disregard.  And  if  one  treats  the  Old  Testament 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  inadequate  as  a 
prime  factor  in  the  production  of  the  New,  we 
do  more  than  damage  and  depreciate  the  Old 
Testament;  because  we  stultify  ourselves,  inas- 
much as  we  have  left  unaccounted-for  a  series 
of  literary  and  historical  facts  as  an  effect  which 
we  have  deprived  of  its  only  sullicient  and  pos- 


36      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

sible  cause.  For  it  is  absolutely  certain  that 
if  the  documents  of  the  Old  Testament  actually 
were  of  the  character  that  the  extreme  criticism 
assigns  to  them,  they  would  have  been  impotent 
to  produce  either  the  literature  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament or  the  historic  facts  which  it  relates  and 
to  which  it  testifies.  Suppose,  for  example,  that 
we  regard  the  whole  book  of  Psalms  as  a  product 
of  the  second  century  before  Christ,  to  what  in- 
extricable confusion  do  we  not  only  reduce  the 
entire  volume  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  how 
preposterously  ignorant  must  we  presume  both 
Christ  and  His  enemies  to  have  been,  who  were 
evidently  most  grossly  mistaken  as  to  their  true 
history  and  origin.  In  fact,  it  would  not  be  diffi- 
cult to  show  that  the  way  the  Old  Testament  is 
referred  to,  and  the  use  that  is  made  of  it  in  the 
New,  is  incontrovertible  proof  that  the  various 
documents  were  no  modern  production,  but  must 
have  required  ages  to  build  up  and  consolidate 
in  the  form  they  had  then  assumed.  Anything, 
therefore,  which  ignores  and  disregards  this  fact, 
is  on  that  very  ground  self-condemi  ed.  There 
are  certain  characteristics  about  the  work  of 
time  which  it  is  impossible  to  counterfeit,  and 
it  is  contrary  to  all  precedent  that  documents 
in  the  second  century  of  their  existence  should 


CLAIMS   OF   THE    OLD    TESTAMENT  37 

have  acquired  the  reputation  for  an  antiiiuity 
of  ten  or  twelve.  And  here  is  one  of  those 
broad  features  of  evidence  Nvhicli  the  layman 
and  the  man  in  the  street  are  as  capable  of  ap- 
preciating and  apprehending  as  the  most  pro- 
found scholar,  and  probably  more  so. 

As  long,  then,  as  the  ordinary  reader  is  pos- 
sessed of  his  Bible  in  the  vernacular,  he  will  be 
as  capable  of  estimating  not  only  its  substantive 
message,  but  certain  broad  features  also  of  its 
form  and  fabric  as  the  expert  and  the  scholar; 
and  so  far  as  he  is  proof  against  theories  which 
are  the  offspring  only  of  hypotheses,  and  unbi- 
ased by  them,  it  is  quite  possible  that  he  may 
form  a  sounder,  more  correct  judgment  than  the 
critic  who,  enamoured  of  his  own  theories,  and 
blinded  by  their  apparent  symmetry  and  sup- 
posed exigencies,  is,  in  order  to  save  his  own 
credit,  compelled  to  shut  his  eyes  to  facts  that 
may  nevertheless  be  too  solid  and  substantial 
to  be  overthrown. 


38       CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 


LECTURE   II 

In  my  former  lecture  I  endeavored  to  form  some 
idea  of  what  the  Old  Testament  really  is,  and 
what  its  claims  are  upon  our  attention.  I  showed 
that  it  was  impossible  so  to  exhaust  the  Old  Tes- 
tament of  the  supernatural  as  to  leave  in  it  suffi- 
cient vitality  and  motive  power  to  be  either 
explicable  in  itself,  or  to  serve  as  the  immediate 
parent  and  progenitor  of  the  facts  and  literature 
of  the  New  Testament.  Eor  though  it  is  very 
evident  that  the  supernatural  facts  of  the  Old 
Testament  are  frequently  alluded  to  in  the  litera- 
ture, yet  that  literature  has  evidently  not  been 
produced  merely  by  the  facts,  but  by  the  belief 
in  an  almighty  competent  and  favoring  Power  to 
whom  the  facts  bore  witness.  It  was  not  the 
thunders  of  Sinai  which  impressed  themselves 
permanently  on  the  minds  of  the  people,  but  the 
personal  being  and  presence  of  that  God  to  whom 
they  bore  such  tremendous  testimony.  And  so 
the  possession  of  Canaan,  full  as  the  history  of  it 
was  with  the  miraculous,  served  not  so  much  to 
recall  those  wonders  as  to  witness  to  the  promises 
to  the  fathers  of  which  it  was  the  abiding  proo£ 


CLAIMS  OF  Tin-:  (iLO  tkstamf-:nt  39 

Thus  even  ill  the  Old  TesLainciit,  if  ii<^liLly  under- 
stood, it  is  not  the  supernatural  which  is  the  pre- 
eniini'nt  and  obtrusive  feature,  but  the  power  and 
presence,  tlie  majesty  and  holiness,  of  that  (Jod 
who  made  use  of  these  features  to  awaken  ia 
men's  minds  the  conception  and  consciousness  of 
His  presence.  When  and  where  this  was  done, 
the  function  of  the  miraculous  might  cease,  and 
the  need  for  it  pass  away  ;  but  it  would  by  no 
means  follow  that  it  had  never  been  employed,  or 
had  never  been  wanted. 

I  shall  now  draw  attention  to  certain  other 
characteristics  of  the  Old  Testament  which  seem 
to  me  to  be  almost  as  eloquent  as  the  miraculous 
itself  in  favor  of  the  divine  character  and  claims 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  try  to  determine  how 
far  they  are  affected  by  critical  theories  concerning 
the  various  books.  First,  there  is  the  oft  repeated 
promise  to  Abraham,  for  which  there  seems  no 
natural  motive  at  any  period,  or  in  any  event  of 
the  history ;  that  is  to  say,  not  the  promise  of  the 
land,  which  is  intelligible,  but  the  promise  of 
blessing  for  all  nations,  which  was  in  strong  con- 
trast to  the  national  exclusiveness.  No  theory  of 
the  higher  criticism  suffices  to  explain  this,  still 
less  the  fact  that  ages  afterwards  it  became  a 
germinal  principle  of  immense  vitality. 


40  CLAIMS    OF   THE    OLD    TESTAMENT 

Then  take  the  promise  to  Moses  :  "  If  ye  will 
obey  my  voice  indeed  and  keep  my  covenant, 
then  ye  shall  be  a  peculiar  treasure  unto  me 
above  all  the  peoples ;  for  all  the  earth  is  mine, 
and  ye  shall  be  unto  me  a  kingdom  of  priests  and 
a  holy  nation."  This  has  been  put  on  a  level 
with  the  claim  of  other  nations  to  the  protection 
and  favor  of  their  deities  ;  but  surely  the  differ- 
ence is  patent.  In  every  other  nation  it  is  the 
deity  whom  the  nation  chooses  and  worships,  and 
the  protection  of  the  deity  is  regarded  as  more  or 
less  a  thing  which  the  deity  is  pledged  to  be- 
stow ;  but  the  conception  of  a  kingdom  of  priests 
and  a  holy  nation  finds  no  parallel  elsewhere,  any 
more  than  the  Scriptural  idea  of  holiness  itself 
does.  Here,  again,  we  may  point  to  a  principle 
which  did  not  manifest  the  fulness  of  its  inhe- 
rent vitality  till  ages  afterwards.  Nor  can  we  dis- 
cover any  period  in  the  national  history  when 
this  sentiment  is  likely  to  have  suggested  itself 
to  any  known  historian  ;  but  here  we  find  it  com- 
municated to  Moses  in  the  secret  visions  of  the 
mount.  I  submit  that  it  is  not  the  form  or  cir- 
cumstances of  the  narrative  that  require  to  be 
accounted  for  or  elucidated,  but  the  substance  of 
the  communication  itself,  which  indeed  is  explica- 
ble only  on  the  supposition  of  its  truth.     The 


CLAIMS    OF    TIIK    OLD    TESTAMKNT  41 

liiy;lier  criticism  gives  us  no  explanation  of  this, 
but  only  offers  some  trivial  conjecture  as  to  the 
composition  of  the  narrative.  It  is  the  same  with 
all  the  more  striking  and  graphic  incidents  of  the 
history  of  the  exodus  and  the  wanderings,  such 
as  the  breaking  of  the  tables  of  stone  and  the 
prayer  of  Moses  thereupon ;  the  promise  "  my 
presence  shall  go  with  thee  and  I  will  give  thee 
rest ; "  the  proclamation  of  the  name  of  the  Lord 
as  merciful  and  gracious,  which  is  continually 
manifesting  its  influence  in  the  subsequent  lit- 
erature ;  the  prescribed  form  of  blessing  fur  the 
children  of  Israel,  with  its  mysterious  triple  artic- 
ulation ;  the  promise  often  repeated  afterwards, 
"  as  truly  as  I  live  all  the  earth  shall  be  filled 
with  the  glory  of  the  Lord ; "  the  forty  years' 
wanderings  in  consequence  of  rebellion  and  mur- 
muring ;  the  marvellous  history  and  the  thwarted 
endeavors  of  Balaam  to  curse  the  people.  These 
and  a  hundred  other  things  are  among  the  indeli- 
ble features  of  the  Mosaic  narrative ;  and  I  repeat 
that  the  higher  criticism  offers  not  one  fragment 
of  explanation  to  account  for  or  exjjlain  them  as 
they  are,  but  only  theorizes  in  a  paltry  and  childish 
way  about  their  particular  form  and  the  profcnind 
problem  to  which  of  the  letters  of  the  alpliabet 
they  are  severally  to  be  referred.    But  surely  even 


42  CLAIMS    OF   THE    OLD    TESTAMENT 

ill  a  fictitious  narrative  it  is  the  essential  sub- 
stance rather  than  the  accidents  of  form  that 
demand  our  primary  attention  and  regard,  and  the 
question  of  questions  in  relation  to  these  various 
incidents  is  their  inherent  truth  or  falsehood.  If 
they  are  fictions  then  the  form  and  incidents  of 
their  composition  are  matters  of  the  utmost  triv- 
iality ;  but  if  there  is  in  them  the  substance  and 
soul  of  truth,  they  then  become  matters  of  the 
highest  import,  and  the  special  feature  of  their  form 
may  be  left  to  take  care  of  itself  as  a  thing  of 
very  small  importance.  The  tendency  which  this 
kind  of  treatment  betrays  has  very  much  the  ap- 
,  pearance  of  a  covert  attack  upon  the  veritable 
truth  of  the  narrative  under  the  pretence  of  a 
minute  examination  of  its  form,  which  is  after  all 
purely  subjective  and  can  lead  to  no  tangible  or 
valid  result. 

When  we  come  to  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy 
the  issue  presented  is  very  definite  and  unmis- 
takable. For  either  from  first  to  last  the  as- 
sumed narrative  is  a  fiction  designed  to  represent 
the  imaginary  action  of  Moses,  or  it  is  what  it 
manifestly  pretends  to  be,  the  personal  narrative 
of  the  last  days  of  the  lawgiver.  If  it  really  is  this, 
its  value  is  unquestionably  incalculable ;  if  it  is 
not,  it  is  equally  impossible  to  determine  what 


CLAIMS  OF  THK  OLD  TESTAMENT      43 

its  value  is  ;  but  one  tiling  is  absolutely  certain, 
that  historically  its  value  is  nil.  And  yet  there 
are  sentiments  and  incidents  in  this  bof)k  of  the 
highest  possible  literary  value  ;  but  if  their  historic 
reality  is  taken  from  them,  it  is  not  only  ditticult 
to  gauge  their  true  value,  but  also  hard  to  con- 
ceive how  as  mere  inventions  they  can  have 
entered  into  the  head  of  any  man,  and  how,  at 
the  time  supposed,  they  should  have  been  so 
concocted  by  an  unknown  writer  as  to  deceive 
alike  the  king,  the  high  priest,  and  the  proph- 
etess, who  one  and  all  accepted  them  as  the  per- 
sonal narrative  of  Moses  some  seven  centuries 
before. 

Not  only  is  truth  stranger  than  fiction,  but  in 
certain  cases  fiction  seems  to  gather  itself  together 
to  be  more  extravagant  than  truth,  and  for  very 
spite  to  outbid  and  to  defy  truth.  And  this  case 
of  the  production  of  Deuteronomy  under  the  con- 
ditions supposed  would  seem  to  be  one  of  them. 
Deuteronomy  is  precisely  one  of  those  composi- 
tions of  which  on  purely  a  priori  and  subjective 
principles  it  is  difficult  to  determine  the  character. 
Did  we  know  nothing  of  its  history  we  might 
hesitate  to  say  whether  it  wns  truth  or  fiction. 
But  can  any  one  venture  to  say  that  we  know 
nothing  of  its  history  ?     It  comes  ])efore  us  with 


44  CLAIMS   OF   THE   OLD   TESTxVMENT 

a  continuous  pedigree  of  three  thousand  years 
on  the  one  side ;  and  on  the  other  there  is 
nothing  but  conjecture.  Surely  the  presump- 
tion is  enormously  in  favor  of  its  truth,  and 
beyond  all  doubt  the  onus  probandi  rests  and 
must  rest  on  the  attempt  to  prove  it  fiction. 
There  is  no  need  to  bias  the  issue  by  the  use 
of  the  word  "  forgery."  The  question  simply  is 
whether  Deuteronomy  is  a  true  or  fictitious  nar- 
rative. And  this  on  purely  abstract  principles 
it  may  be  difficult,  or  even,  for  lack  of  data,  im- 
possible to  decide.  But  is  there,  strictly  speaking, 
here  any  lack  of  data  ?  Undoubtedly  not,  unless 
we  summarily  reject  the  data  that  do  exist. 
But  that  surely  is  a  most  unwarrantable  proceed- 
ing when  there  is  nothing  but  conjecture  on  the 
other  side.  It  is  beyond  all  doubt  that,  as  far  as 
literary  evidence  goes,  there  is  continuous  and 
unbroken  testimony  alike  to  the  existence  and  to 
the  influence  of  Deuteronomy ;  and  unless  we  are 
to  assume  that  all  this  complex  and  apparently 
undesigned  evidence  has  been  intentionally  and 
fraudulently  fabricated  and  arranged  for  the  pur- 
pose of  producing  the  effect  as  we  perceive  it,  the 
criteria  in  favor  of  Deuteronomy  must  be  pre- 
sumed complete  and  conclusive.  Except  on  the 
assumption  of  the  most  gigantic  and  systematic 


CL.VIMS   OF   TlIK    OLD    TKSTAMF.NT  45 

imposture,  or  the  most  obstinate  and  elaborate 
self-deception,  it  is  impossible  to  set  aside  the 
testimony  of  Deuteronomy.  And  if  in  tliis  case 
it  is  set  aside,  it  is  hard  to  know  what  literary 
production  can  be  regarded  as  secure.  For  there 
is  perhaps  scarcely  any  one  literary  production 
of  antiquity  so  well  attested  as  Deuteronomy.  If 
Deuteronomy,  therefore,  is  not  genuine,  it  is  hard 
to  determine  what  literary  production  may  not 
be  called  in  question.  Deuteronomy,  moreover, 
funiislies  an  excellent  test  of  tlie  princiiile  tliat 
the  ethical  value  of  a  narrative  does  not  depend 
on  its  historical  truth.  For  surely  no  one  could 
maintain  that  the  ethical  value  of  Deuteronomy 
would  be  the  same  whether  it  were  fiction  or  a 
narrative  of  fact.  If  the  relation  between  the 
Creator  and  the  lawgiver 'were  such  as  is  repre- 
sented in  Deuteronomy,  it  stands  to  reason  that 
the  ethical  value  of  the  narrative  must  be  far 
greater  than  if  the  narrative  were  a  fiction.  And 
yet  if  the  narrative  was  put  together  seven 
hundred  years  after  the  time  of  Moses,  it  is 
equally  certain  that  it  can  have  no  value  as 
history,  if  only  for  the  reason  that  it  is  alleged 
to  be  at  variance  with  the  history  in  Exodus 
and  Numbers.  So  far,  then,  as  this  is  the  case 
and  if  it  ))e  so,  we  must  decide  which  is  true, 


46      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

and  shall  probably  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
neither  is.^ 

In  like  manner  when  we  pass  to  the  historical 
books,  we  surely  must  decide  whether  they  are 
to  be  received  as  history  or  regarded  as  myth. 
Are  they  bona  fide,  or  written  with  a  bias  ?  and  if 
the  bias  can  be  detected,  is  it  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  vitiate  the  substance  of  the  narrative  ?  It 
may  be  said  that  these  are  all  questions  inde- 
pendent of  the  higher  criticism,  with  which  it 
does  not  concern  itself  ;  and  so  they  may  be,  but 
there  is  an  antecedent  question,  to  which  I  am 
determined  to  find  an  answer ;  and  that  is,  What 
is  the  substantive  value  of  these  historical  docu- 
ments ?  —  before  we  begin  to  subject  them  to 
vivisection ;  and  possibly  it  may  turn  out  that 
they  would  be  altogether  undeserving  of  this 
microscopic  attention,  were  it  not  that  they  are 
legitimately  entitled  to  the  claim  which  is  de- 
nied them.  If  they  really  are  the  tissue  of 
misrepresentation  and  deception  they  are  alleged 
to  be,  surely  they  would  not  be  worthy  of  the 
pains  bestowed  upon  them.  It  is  because  of 
their  inherited  claim,  and  practically  for  this 
alone,  that  they  are  so  vehemently  attacked. 
And  yet  there  is  so  much  of  the  stamp  of  the 

^  Driver's  Deuterouoniy,  p.  xxxv  ct  seq. 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TKSTAMKNT      47 

supernatural  upon  tlieui  as  nii^'lit  sulHcc  to  [,'ive 
us  pause  before  rejecting  tlieni  out  nf  hand.  For 
take  the  books  of  Samuel  and  Kings  in  their 
broadest  and  most  every-day  aspect,  do  they 
not  record  the  longing  of  the  nation  for  a  king, 
the  unsuccessful  issue  of  tlie  first  attempt,  the 
choice  of  an  insignificant  person  to  l)e  tlie 
anointed  king  to  whom  the  perpetual  posses- 
sion of  the  thrcme  was  promised  ?  And  is  it  not 
a  fact  that  after  this  man's  line  had  been  set 
aside,  and  the  monarchy  cleft  in  two,  tlie  rival 
line  turned  out  to  be  little  better  than  a  succes- 
sion of  usurpers,  while  the  lineal  descendant  of 
the  chosen  king  was  still  in  possession  of  his 
fathers'  throne,  when  four  hundred  years  after- 
wards the  nation  and  monarchy  were  finally  dis- 
solved and  broken  up  ?  I  do  not  see  how  at  any 
period  after  Solomon  the  fiction  of  perpetuity  in 
David's  line  is  likely  to  have  been  attributed  to 
him  or  his  time  if  it  was  really  a  later  inven- 
tion, because  in  that  case  there  was  so  much  to 
contradict  it  in  notorious  facts ;  and  yet  as  an  un- 
doubted truth  the  last  King  of  Judah  was  the 
lineal  descendant  of  David.  Now,  I  do  not  know 
that  there  is  any  point  in  this  chain  of  circum- 
stances that  is  open  to  dispute,  unless  it  be  the 
original  promise  to  David, -which,  if  a  fact,  ad- 


48  CLAIMS   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT 

mits  of  no  natural  explanation  ;  and  yet  it  is 
this  very  promise  to  which,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
is  so  difficult  to  assign  a  late  origin.  Nor  do  I 
know  of  any  way  in  w^hich  it  can  be  dealt  with 
other  than  that  of  Ewald  and  Dean  Stanley,  who 
deliberately  disregarded  it  and  chose  to  represent 
the  line  of  Israel  as  the  legitimate  and  natural 
line  in  wliich  the  monarchy  was  perpetuated,  in 
manifest  defiance,  however,  of  all  the  facts. 

But  theu  how  full  are  these  books  tliemselves 
of  graphic  and  life-like  portraits  and  incidents 
wliich  must  forever  entitle  them  to  a  unique 
and  unrivalled  position  in  the  historical  litera- 
ture of  the  world.  Take  the  characters  of  Sam- 
uel, Saul,  David,  Elijah,  Elisha,  Ahab,  Jehu,  and 
the  rest,  and  the  various  incidents  connected 
with  them,  and  are  there  not  stamped  upon 
them  the  indelible  features  of  a  God-given  his- 
tory ?  And  if  the  footprints  of  God  are  to  be 
traced  anywhere  in  human  history,  is  it  not 
here,  in  a  history  claiming  to  be  guided  by 
Him,  that  we  may  trace  them  most  plainly 
and  unmistakably  ? 

Then,  again,  take  the  Psalms,  which  occupy  an 
absolutely  unique  position  in  the  literature  of  the 
world ;  to  which  there  is  no  true  analogy,  and 
most  undoubtedly  no  rival.     The  question  may 


CLAIMS    OF    TlIK    OLD    TP:STAMENT  49 

wvW  1)0  asked,  "What  lias  the  hit^fhcr  critirism  done 
for  the  Psalms?  And  the  answer  is,  To  refer  them 
all  to  the  second  century  before  Christ.  lUit  with 
what  result  ?  And  the  answer  is,  To  make  them 
alisolutely  unintelligiltle,  inconsistent,  and  im})os- 
sihle.  What  elucidation  does  the  110th  Psalm, 
so  clearly  referred  to  in  Zech.  vi.  13,  in  the  sixth 
century  n.  c,  and  with  which  Zechariah  was  mani- 
festly familiar,  gain  by  being  thus  assigned  to 
the  second  century  ?  Whatever  light  it  had 
before  becomes  gross  darkness ;  and  if  the  wit- 
ness of  language  is  of  any  weight  at  all,  how 
are  we  to  account  for  its  archaic  character  here  ? 
and  what  possible  connection  has  the  allusion  to 
Melchisedec  here?  Take,  again,  the  51st  Psalm, 
which  all  tradition  has  associated  with  David's 
repentance;  does  it  become  more  intelligible  or 
more  appropriate  by  being  assigned  to  a  writer 
and  occasion  utterly  unknown,  and  seven  or  eight 
centuries  later  ?  Instead  of  elucidating  the  liter- 
ature, criticism  of  this  kind  effectually  obscures 
and  darkens  it.  On  the  other  hand,  accepting 
the  51st  Psalm  as  David's,  the  words  "  Purge  me 
with  hyssop  and  I  shall  be  clean"  furnish  unde- 
signed but  conclusive  evidence  of  the  writer's 
ae([uaintance  with  the  Levitieal  oidiiianees,  in- 
asmuch as  hyssop  is  mentioned  only  here,  and 
1 


50      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

once  in  relation  to  the  physical  knowledge  of 
Solomon,  besides  its  sevenfold  mention  in  con- 
nection with  those  ordinances.  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  know  what  is  gained  by  affirming,  contrary  to 
all  testimony,  and  without  the  slightest  positive 
ground,  that  the  superscription  to  the  51st  Psalm 
is  not  genuine,  confirmed  as  it  is  by  the  Septuagint 
and  Syriac ;  whereas  if  we  trust  it,  as  we  surely 
may,  the  Psalm  at  once  receives  an  accession 
of  illumination  from  the  known  history  of  the 
writer.  Is  it  not  a  fact  that  our  own  hymnology 
is  heightened  in  interest  and  significance  when 
we  can  associate  the  several  hymns  with  the  per- 
sonal recollections  of  Toplady,  Cowper,  or  Lyte  ? 
Should  we  gain  or  lose  by  being  told  by  some 
critic  of  the  twentieth  century  that  "  Rock  of 
Ages  cleft  for  me,"  had  been  wrongly  ascribed 
to  its  traditional  author,  and  was  an  unknown 
composition  of  an  unknown  date ;  or  that  "  God 
moves  in  a  mysterious  way,"  was  not  written  by 
Cowper;  or  "Abide  with  Me,"  by  Lyte?  The 
unlearned  public  is  disposed  to  attach  an  undue 
importance  to  the  assertions  of  those  who  arro- 
gate to  themselves  the  appellation  of  critics,  which 
in  a  large  number  of  cases  have  about  as  much 
ground  to  rest  on  as  the  instances  now  suggested 
would  have.     In  nearly  all  cases  subjective  by- 


CLAIMS  OF  THK  OLD  TESTAMENT      51 

potlicsis  iisur[is  tlio  place;  of  objective  evidence; 
and  every  one  knows  tliat  the  same  object  as- 
sumes an  entirely  different  aspect  according  to 
the  position  of  the  person  regarding  it. 

Take,  again,  the  80th  Tsalni,  ■which  is  ascribed 
to  Asaph.  The  second  verse  of  that  I'salm  is 
absolutely  unintelligible  unless  it  refers  to  an  ob- 
scure passage  in  the  so-called  Priestly  Code  of  the 
Pentateuch.  The  appeal  is,  "  ]>efore  Ephraim  and 
Benjamin  and  Manasseh  stir  up  thy  strength,  and 
come  and  save  us,"  —  those  being  the  very  tribes 
which  followed  the  ark  during  the  march  in  the 
desert.  Now,  this  Psalm  is  ascribed  to  Asaph, 
the  contemporary  of  David,  and  the  Priestly 
Code  is  assigned  to  the  fifth  century  before 
Christ.  Consequently,  we  must  infer  that  Asajih 
was  acquainted  with  the  order  of  march  in  the 
wilderness,  which,  as  there  is  no  other  record  of 
it,  he  must  have  learned  from  the  Priestly  Code, 
which  therefore  must  have  existed  in  his  time  ;  or, 
accepting  the  hypothetical  date  of  the  critics  for 
that  supposititious  documnit,  we  must  infer  that 
a  still  later  writer  seized  ujion  this  casual  state- 
ment of  the  newly  invented  code,  and  made  it 
the  basis  of  his  appeal  to  the  Shepherd  of  Israel 
at  a  time  when  Ephraim,  Benjamin,  and  Manas- 
seh had  all  been  dispersed  in  captivity  and  had 


52      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

no  longer  any  independent  tribal  existence.  Is 
this  in  the  remotest  degree  probable  ?  But  unless 
it  is,  the  other  inference,  which  points  to  a  time 
before  the  division  of  the  monarchy,  and  to  the 
knowledge  at  that  time  of  the  order  of  the  march 
in  the  desert,  must  be  allowed  its  full  weight ; 
and,  accepting  the  authorship  of  the  Psalm,  it 
must  rank  as  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the 
Pentateuch  in  the  time  of  David.  Two  inciden- 
tal references  such  as  these  in  the  51st  and  80th 
Psalms,  it  must  be  confessed,  carry  us  not  a  lit- 
tle way  towards  a  decision  as  to  the  date  of  the 
records  of  the  Pentateuch. 

The  book  of  Psalms,  moreover,  is  a  treasury  of 
devotion  of  the  broadest  possible  character;  for 
it  is  the  fullest  and  freest  expression  of  the  per- 
sonal relation  of  the  soul  to  God.  In  this  re- 
spect it  is  unrivalled  and  invaluable.  And  its 
association  with  some  of  the  well-known  ser- 
vants of  God  must  be  held  to  add  enormously 
to  its  authority  and  value ;  but  if  we  put  aside 
all  the  inscriptions,  and  refer  its  authorship  to 
obscure  and  unknown  writers  of  the  second 
century  B.  c,  and  that  upon  simply  baseless  hy- 
pothetical considerations,  we  may  indeed  have 
achieved  a  triumph  of  criticism,  but  we  have  no 
less  certainly  succeeded  in  depreciating  and  ren- 


CLAIMS    OF    THE    OLD    TF.KTAMF.XT  53 

(Icring  worthless  tlio  value  of  tin'  IV  alms  as  an 
authorized  treasury  of  devotion.  JMched,  this  is 
the  very  point,  it  seems  to  me,  that  we  liave  to 
determine:  Ifow  far  is  the  ])ook  of  I'salms  an 
authorized  treasury  of  devotion,  and  on  what 
docs  that  authority  depend  ?  Is  the  authority  of 
the  Book  of  Psalms  something  it  derives  from  its 
place  in  the  canon,  or  is  its  place  in  the  canon 
merely  a  witness  to  its  authority  ?  and  if  so, 
from  what  is  that  authority  derived  ?  Now,  the 
authority  of  the  Psalms  is  to  a  large  extent  de- 
pendent upon  the  truth  and  reality  of  the  state- 
ments therein  contained.  For  example  :  "  The 
Lord  hath  said  unto  me.  Thou  art  my  son  ;  this 
day  have  I  begotten  thee."  "  I  will  instruct 
thee,  and  teach  thee  in  the  way  which  thou  shalt 
go :  I  will  guide  thee  with  mine  eye."     "  Hear, 

0  my  people,  and  I  will  speak  ;  0  Israel,  and 

1  will  testify  against  thee  ;  I  am  God,  even  thy 
G(k1."  "Call  upon  me  in  the  time  of  trouble  :  I 
will  deliver  thee,  and  thou  shalt  glorify  me." 
"  God  hath  spoken  in  his  holiness  ;  I  will  rejoice, 
I  will  divide  Shechem,  and  mete  out  the  valley  of 
Succoth."  These  and  a  hundred  other  statements 
throw  us  back  upon  the  question,  Have  they 
merely  subjective  assurance,  or  do  they  rest  upon 
objective  certainty  ?     If  they  are  merely  the  sub- 


54      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

jective  assertion  of  confidence,  then  they  are  more 
or  less  untrue  and  unauthorized  in  their  asser- 
tion ;  but  if  they  are  true,  then  their  truth  is  not 
one  that  we  must  look  for  in  the  lieart  of  the 
writer,  but  one  that  rests  on  the  objective  dec- 
laration of  the  professed  speaker ;  that  is,  on  the 
actual  revelation  and  promise  of  God.  This  of 
course  presupposes  the  fact  of  revelation,  but  it 
is  a  very  serious  question  whether  it  is  possible 
to  account  for  the  confident  language  of  the 
Psalms  except  on  the  supposition  of  a  positive 
revelation  of  God.  If  all  the  statements  in  the 
Psalms  are  resolved  into  subjective  expressions 
of  assurance,  then  there  is  an  end  to  everything 
like  authority  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  they 
are  otherwise  authoritative ;  and  how  is  this  to 
be  shown  apart  from  the  objective  facts  upon 
which  they  are  supposed  to  rest  ?  Either  it  is  a 
fact  that  God  spoke  to  David,  or  it  is  not.  If  it  is 
not,  then  all  the  assertions  in  the  Psalms  to  that 
effect  are  false  and  delusive.  If  it  is,  then  these 
assertions  are  the  proof  of  it;  but  in  that  case 
there  is  a  reality  for  them  to  rest  on,  and  we  have 
something  to  which  we  can  appeal  as  the  veritable 
word  of  God  ;  and  the  place  of  the  Psalms  in  the 
canon  is  a  witness  to  this  word  of  God,  but  by  no 
means  the  cause  of  its  being  the  word  of  God. 


CLAIMS  OK  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT       i):> 

And  this,  1  take  it,  is  a  very  signilicaut  dill'er- 
cuee  which  the  higher  criticism  does  not  face  and 
cannot  ex])lain,  hut  can  only  try  to  ex}dain  away, 
to  tlie  absohite  destruction  of  anything  like  faith. 
The  Psalms,  therefore,  must  be  regarded  as  a 
storehouse  of  unwarrantable  assurance,  having 
no  foundation  in  itself,  and  supplying  none  to 
any  one  else  ;  or,  on  the  contrary,  they  are  the 
expression  of  hopes  and  confidences  which  were 
breathed  into  the  hearts  of  the  writers  by  the 
spirit  of  the  living  (lod,  and  whicli  for  that  rea- 
son have  the  power  for  all  time  of  awakening  the 
like  confidence  and  assurance  in  every  one  who 
will  trust  in  like  manner  in  the  same  living  and 
eternal  God,  who  is  ever  ready  to  establish  and 
confirm  His  word. 

Another  function,  however,  which  the,  I'salms 
fulfil  is  in  the  testimony  that  they  give  to  the 
main  facts  of  the  national  history ;  and  this  is 
independent  and  spontaneous  testimony  that  it 
is  not  possible  to  rebut.  We  have  the  history  of 
the  exodus  and  the  wanderings,  the  wonders  of 
the  conc^uest  and  the  struggle  of  the  Judges, 
no  less  than  the  promise  to  David  and  the  for- 
tunes of  the  tabernacle,  borne  witness  to  in  the 
national  poetry  of  the  Psalms.  So  that  they  are 
to  the  history  of  Israel  what  the  historical  plays 


56      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

of  Shakespeare  are  to  that  of  England.  That 
is  to  say,  they  presuppose  a  framework  of  events, 
and  that  in  this  case  of  a  supernatural  character, 
apart  from  which  they  could  have  had  no  exist- 
ence ;  and  though  in  each  case  it  may  be  possible 
to  minimize  the  supernatural  element,  it  is  not 
possible  to  deny  that  the  net  result  is  such  as 
to  leave,  as  it  is  clearly  intended  to  leave,  no  doubt 
in  the  reader's  mind  that  God  dealt  with  Israel 
as  He  did  not  deal  with  any  other  nation.  The 
national  history  is  the  unmistakable  witness  to 
this  fact,  and  the  national  poetry  confirms  it. 

There  are  three  institutions  cliaracteristic  of 
Israel  which  are  highly  significant  and  important, 
the  rare  mention  of  which  in  certain  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament  may  lielji  us  to  estimate  the  value 
of  the  argument  from  silence  so  often  appealed 
to:  these  are,  the  tabernacle,  the  Sabbath,  and 
circumcision.  It  is  one  of  the  achievements  of 
the  higher  criticism  to  have  demolished  the  tab- 
ernacle and  to  have  proved,  or  rather  shown 
(which,  be  it  remembered,  is  not  the  same  thing), 
that  it  never  had  any  existence  whatever  except 
on  paper  and  in  the  imagination  of  Babylonian 
priests.  But,  of  course,  this  can  only  be  done  by 
setting  aside  not  only  the  prescriptions  of  the 
Pentateuch,  but  also  by  disregarding  the  evidence 


CLAIMS   OF   TIIK    OLD    TKSTAMEXT  57 

of  the  books  of  Josliua  and  Samuel,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  testimony  of  the  TStli  T-sahii,  "So  that 
he  forsook  the  tabernacle  of  Shiloh,  the  tent, 
which  he  placed  among  men,"  confirmed  as  this  is 
by  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  vii.  12,  14,  and  xxvi.  9. 
Surely  it  is  not  all  at  once  that  the  people  of 
England  or  of  this  country  are  likely  to  be  per- 
suaded to  accept  a  theory  so  monstrous  in  the  face 
of  direct  and  positive  evidence  to  the  contrary, 
merely  because  a  few  German  critics  have  sug- 
gested the  notion,  and  a  few  English  scholars 
have  adopted  it  to  the  infinite  discredit  of  their 
own  judgment.  Does  it  not  seem  to  surpass  the 
limits  of  possibility  that  a  body  of  exiled  priests 
in  liabylon  should  amuse  themselves  with  sketch- 
ing out  in  minute  and  laborious  detail  the  plan 
and  measurements  of  an  imaginary  tabernacle 
created  only  by  their  own  conception.  The  very 
idea  seems  to  court  rejection ;  and  yet,  strange 
to  say,  there  are  those  to  whom  it  seems  more 
probable  than  that  the  pattern  shown  to  Moses 
in  the  mount  should  be  preserved  in  Exodus. 

Again,  with  regard  to  the  Sabbath,  often  as 
it  is  mentioned  in  the  last  four  books  of  the 
Pentateuch,  the  word  does  not  occur  in  Genesis, 
though  there  are  slight  indications  of  acquaint- 
ance with  the  institution ;  but  it  is  not  so  much 


58      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

as  named  in  any  historical  book  before  2  Kings, 
and  only  once  in  the  title  of  one  of  the  Psalms. 
Five  only  of  the  fifteen  prophets  make  any  allu- 
sion to  it ;  so  that  were  it  not  for  its  constant 
occurrence  in  the  Pentateuch  and  the  later  his- 
torical books,  one  might  almost  question  the 
knowledge,  or  at  least  the  observance  of  it. 

Still  more  remarkable  is  the  case  of  circum- 
cision. The  original  charter  of  it  is  given  in 
Genesis  xvii.,  which  is  assigned  by  the  critics 
to  the  fifth  century  B.  c.  ;  after  the  Book  of 
Joshua,  there  is  but  one  solitary  allusion  to  cir- 
cumcision in  Jeremiah  (ix.  25),  and  yet  I  suppose 
no  one  would  question  the  fact  that  this  rite  was 
practised  by  the  Israelites  from  the  very  first ; 
and  the  fact  that  the  Arabs  still  practiso  it  in 
the  thirteenth  year,  that  being  the  age  at  which 
Ishmael  was  circumcised,  is  a  strong  confirma- 
tion thereof.  But  how  is  all  this  consistent 
with  the  theory  that  the  17th  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis was  written  in  the  fifth  century  B.  c,  and 
that,  without  any  written  precept,  the  nation 
had  universally  practised  it  for  fifteen  centu- 
ries before  ?  Is  this  conceivable  ?  Is  it  possible  ? 
Are  not  the  practical  difficulties  involved  in 
the  theory  far  greater  than  they  would  be  on 
the  supposition  that  the  original  command  was 


CLAIMS    OF   TIIK    OLD   TESTAMKNT  59 

given  to  Abraham  as  recorded  in  (Jenesis  ?  If 
otliorwise,  what  evidence  is  there  that  circum- 
cision had  any  ground  to  be  regarded  as  the 
veritable  sign  of  God's  covenant  ? 

To  take  the  parallel  case  of  baptism.  Suj)pose 
that  it  could  be  shown  that  all  uur  Lord's  com- 
mands respecting  baptism  were  thirteen  centu- 
ries later  than  his  time;  how  would  it  be  possible 
to  maintain  that  baptism  was  anything  more 
than  an  ecclesiastical  rite  resting  upon  no  divine 
authority  and  proving  no  divine  sanction  ?  And 
yet  this  is  what  would  inevitably  follow  in  the 
case  of  Israel  with  regard  to  circumcision,  if  it 
were  admitted  that  Genesis  xvii.  were  of  the 
fifth  century  u.  c.  In  short,  the  one  question 
we  have  to  settle  is.  What  constitutes  the  author- 
ity of  the  Old  Testament,  and  who  gave  it  that 
authority?  Now,  to  put  it  broadly,  if  Moses  is 
the  ultimate  author  of  the  Pentateuch,  then  the 
authority  of  the  Pentateuch  is  the  authority  of 
Moses.  He  was  the  mediator  of  the  covenant 
therein  contained.  It  was  by  and  through  him 
that  God  dealt  with  Israel  after  the  manner 
therein  narrated.  But  I  fail  to  see  where  this 
authority  is  to  come  from,  or  how  it  is  to  be 
communicated  to  a  series  of  documents  written 
by  nobody  knows  who,  and  not  committed  to 


60      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

writing  till  seven  hundred  or  eight  hundred 
years  afterwards,  it  being  at  the  same  time  af- 
firmed that  Moses  was  to  a  large  extent  a  myth- 
ical personage,  and  that  the  greatest  uncertainty 
hangs  over  all  his  history.  This  surely  would 
be  to  postulate  a  theory  of  revelation  without 
any  credentials,  and  to  accept  it  merely  because 
it  had  been  traditionally  regarded  as  a  revela- 
tion, though  the  reasons  wlien  investigated  were 
by  no  means  apparent.  And  yet  this  is  the 
alternative  to  which  we  are  committed  if  we 
reject  the  substantial  historic  truth  of  the  Mo- 
saic narrative.  If  it  is  not  of  Moses,  to  whom 
can  we  ascribe  it  whose  name  would  carry  with 
it  one  tithe  of  the  like  authority?  Nay,  how  could 
we  be  sure  that  it  would  possess  any  authority 
at  all  ?  I  suppose  that  it  is  admitted  generally 
that  any  document  to  be  authoritative  must  be 
able  to  furnish  credentials  which  shall  authen- 
ticate it.  If  Deuteronomy  was  written  in  the 
age  of  Manasseh  or  Josiah,  what  are  its  creden- 
tials ?  They  are  manifestly  nil,  except  so  far 
as  its  adoption  by  the  king,  high  priest,  propli- 
etess,  and  people  supplied  them,  —  credentials 
which,  however,  they  were  unable  to  supply  if 
they  did  not  exist.  In  like  manner,  if  Moses 
is  the  ultimate  author  of  the  Exodus  narrative, 


CLAIMS   OF   TIIK    OLD    TKSTAMKNT  61 

its  cruduuUals  arc  supplied  by  LliuL  fucL;  if  it 
was  seven  hundred  or  eight  hundred  years  later 
it  can  possess  no  credentials  at  all,  and  can  "only 
in  a  hare  nucleus  he  Mosaic;"  that  is,  nnist  he 
mure  mythical  than  true.  What  I  want  to 
know  is,  whether  this  is  the  way  in  which  we 
are  ])rcpared  to  accept  the  Old  Testament  nar- 
rative at  the  bidding  of  self-styled  critics ;  be- 
cause in  that  case  we  must  entirely  remodify 
all  our  trailitional  belief,  even  as  that  is  adopted 
and  expressed  in  tlie  New  Testament. 

I  come  now  to  the  Prophets,  about  which  criti- 
cism has  been  unusually  busy  with  regard  to 
date.  In  the  Hebrew  canon  there  are  fifteen 
prophets,  —  three  greater  and  twelve  lesser  proph- 
ets. With  regard  to  the  general  date  of  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  and  Ezekiel  there  is  no  reasonable 
doubt.  With  regard  to  the  minor  prophets, 
their  arrangement  in  the  Hebrew  canon  is 
manifestly  that  of  ante  and  post-captivity  proi)h- 
ets ;  and  in  the  former  case,  the  division  is  into 
those  of  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  periods. 
The  general  correctness  of  this  arrangement  is 
admitted,  but  with  regard  to  one  of  the  earlier 
prophets,  namely  Joel,  it  has  been  rashly  con- 
jectured that  he  belonged  to  the  post-captivity 
period.     Now,  as  the   canonical  arrangement   is 


62  CLAIMS   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT 

undoubtedly  in  the  main  correct,  it  seems  haz- 
ardous to  interfere  with  it  in  the  case  of  Joel, 
unless  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  do  so.  But 
the  main  reason  advanced  is  because  the  evi- 
dence borne  by  Joel  to  the  early  acquaintance 
with  the  Levitical  ritual  is  so  strong  as  to  be 
absolutely  fatal  to  the  supposed  late  origin  of  the 
law.  This,  however,  is  setting  aside  evidence 
rather  than  being  guided  by  it,  and  consequently 
Joel  may  be  allowed  to  retain  his  place  until 
stronger  reasons  can  be  given  for  removing  him 
from  it. 

The  book  of  the  prophet  Isaiah,  however,  has 
been  the  battlefield  of  controversy ;  though  in  this 
case  also  the  positive  and  external  testimony  is 
distinctly  in  favor  of  its  integrity,  and  is  only  to 
be  rebutted  by  subjective  interpretation  of  in- 
ternal phenomena.  We  have  this  fact  to  deal 
with,  that  at  the  time  of  Christ  all  the  writings 
ascribed  to  Isaiah  were  acknowledged  and  quoted 
as  his ;  there  is  no  vestige  of  any  other  belief. 
Therefore  the  guardians  of  the  canon  must  have 
been  guilty  of  extreme  and  culpable  carelessness 
if  they  joined  on  to  the  writings  of  Isaiah  the  work 
of  an  unknown  man  who  lived  a  century  and  a 
half  later,  and  preserved  no  record  of  his  work  or 
personality.     This  on  the  face  of  it  appears  to  be 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      C,3 

highly  iiiipn)l)a])le ;  and,  moreover,  several  chap- 
ters are  expressly  assigned  to  Isaiah,  as  the  2d, 
13th,  etc.  Of  tliese,  the  l.'>th  could  never  have 
been  so  assigned  ])ut  on  the  l)elief  that  there  was 
nothing  inliorently  improbable  in  its  l)eing  his, 
whereas  it  is  precisely  on  this  ground  that  it  is 
now  tlenied  to  liim.  The  conception,  therefore,  of 
the  function  of  the  prophet  in  the  two  cases 
differs,  and  the  one  is  inconsistent  with  the 
other ;  but  it  is  this  inconsistency  which  is  the 
basis  of  the  criticism.  Tliose  who  were  responsi- 
ble for  the  canon  assumed  that  the  prophet  could 
have  written  every  chapter  in  the  book ;  it  is 
because  the  critics  assume  that  he  could  not  that 
they  reject  his  authorsliip.  The  prophet,  we  are 
told,  speaks  from  the  standpoint  of  his  own  time. 
That  may  be  so,  but  the  horizon  of  his  visipn  ex- 
tends far  beyond  his  own  time.  A  prophet  who 
could  have  written  the  first  or  sixth  chapters  of 
Isaiah  was  certainly  not  limited  by  the  horizon 
of  his  own  time,  and  if  there  is  no  foreknowledge 
in  either  it  is  hard  to  say  where  it  may  be  found, 
in  the  la.st  twenty-seven  chapters  or  elsewhere. 
For  assuredly  it  is  not  only  in  the  writings  of 
the  prophets  that  we  may  discover  it,  but  many 
times  over  in  every  book  of  the  Pentateuch,  as 
Well  as  in  the  (ttlier  historical  books.     In  short, 


64      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

it  is  this  feature  of  anticipation  and  foreknowl- 
edge which  stamps  the  Old  Testament  as  a 
whole,  and  it  is  impossible  to  get  rid  of  it  by- 
assigning  a  later  date  to  this  or  that  passage 
ascribed  to  an  earlier  prophet.  For  example, 
even  allowing  that  the  standpoint  of  the  last 
twenty-seven  chapters  is  that  of  the  captivity, 
which,  however,  I  by  no  means  allow,  this  in  no 
degree  accounts  for  their  most  characteristic  phe- 
nomena. The  fact  that  Cyrus  is  twice  mentioned 
by  name,  and  Babylon  and  the  Chaldeans  some 
four  or  five  times  in  these  chapters,  by  no  means 
proves  that  that  is  their  chief  subject-matter. 
On  the  contrary,  there  is  a  vast  amount  of 
matter  with  which  they  have  nothing  whatever 
to  do,  and  which  is  equally  inexplicable  whether 
it  is  referred  to  the  sixth  or  to  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ.  And  so  with  the  notorious  53d 
chapter.  Let  it  be  assigned  to  any  one  per- 
son on  whom  the  critics  can  agree,  so  that  it 
be  not  Jesus  Christ,  it  nevertheless  remains,  and 
will  remain  a  fact  to  all  time,  that  there  is  no 
conceivable  character  in  all  history  to  whom  it 
has  so  close  an  apparent  reference,  no  one  whom 
it  so  vividly  portrays,  and  no  one  to  whom  it  so 
naturally  belongs,  as  to  the  suffering  Saviour. 
Whether  the  writer  lived  five  hundred  or  seven 


CLAIMS    OF    Till-;    I  ILK    TKSTAMKNT  G5 

hundred  years  befure  Clni.st  it  matters  not;  for 
liistory  presents  us  with  no  conceivable  subject 
fur  his  canvas;  and  if  he  unconsciously  produced 
an  ieleal  portrait  of  Cluist,  that  is  an  achievement 
as  far  beyond  the  natural  powers  of  a  post-cap- 
tivity writer  as  it  was  beyond  the  natural  powers 
of  Isaiah,  and  therefore  exegesis  gains  nothing  by 
putting  this  composition  a  century  and  a  half  or 
two  centuries  later  than  the  prophet's  time. 
Anyhow  we  are  confronted  with  a  phenomenon 
for  which  there  is  no  natural  or  sufficient  expla- 
nation, and  every  attempt  to  explain  it  sinks  into 
nothing  before  that  which  was  given  by  Philip 
the  Evangelist  to  the  Ethiopian  eunuch.  And  on 
the  supposition  that  that  is  in  any  sense  inten- 
tional and  correct,  it  defies  all  ingenuity  to 
account  for  its  existence  or  its  creation  at  any 
period  l)etween  the  time  of  Isaiah  and  the  closing 
of  the  canon.  The  critics,  therefore,  are  only 
throwing  dust  in  our  eyes  when  they  think  to 
persuade  us  that  they  can  eviscerate  the  super- 
human and  divine  elements  inherent  in  the  Old 
Testament,  or  can  reduce  it  to  the  level  of  a 
merely  human  production  by  shifting  the  date  of 
some  of  its  documents,  and  interpreting  its  utter- 
ances of  the  barren  and  the  commoni>lace.  "  If 
not  a  line  of  Hebrew  prophecy  had  been  written 
5 


66  CLAIMS   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT 

till  after  the  captivity  of  the  Jews  in  Babylon, 
there  is  a  mass  of  matter  remaining  which  must 
have  been  as  purely  predictive  in  substance  as  it 
is  in  form."  ^ 

It  is  here,  in  the  interests  of  truth  and  faith, 
that  criticism  compels  us  to  take  our  stand,  be- 
cause it  is  on  the  Divine  authority  and  the  Divine 
character  of  these  books  that  we  depend ;  and  if 
this  is  destroyed  the  ground  is  taken  away  from 
under  our  feet,  for  the  Old  Testament  is  worth 
nothing  if  it  can  be  proved  to  be  only  from  man, 
and  of  the  earth  earthy.  And  therefore  it  is  im- 
possible for  us,  as  believing  men,  to  regard  with 
equanimity  conclusions  and  hypotheses  which, 
though  baseless,  nevertheless  assume  trium- 
phantly that  their  position  is  established,  and 
their  results  unassailable;  for  if  this  be  so, 
most  unquestionably  faith  is  made  void,  and  the 
promises  made  of  none  effect. 

The  last  nine  chapters  of  Ezekiel  are  unique 
not  only  among  the  writings  of  the  prophets, 
but  also  among  the  books  of  the  Bible.  They 
present  a  strong  contrast  to  the  rest  of  his  own 
book,  for  they  give  an  ideal  picture  of  the  restored 
polity  and  ritual  of  the  emancipated  nation ; 
and  yet  there  is  no  evidence  of  their  ever  having 
1  Duke  of  Argyll,  "  Philosophy  of  Belief,"  p.  267. 


CLAIMS    OF    TIIF,   OLD   TESTAMKNT  07 

had  the  .slightest  iiilhience  on  the  coiuhict  and  his- 
tory of  the  returning  captives.  Nor  is  it  even  pos- 
sible that  they  can  have  been  written  with  that 
intent ;  for  many  of  the  features  and  conditions 
supposed  are  physically  impossible  and  can  never 
have  been  meant  to  be  realized.  On  the  supposi- 
tion, however,  that  what  is  called  the  Priestly  Code 
was  the  product  of  the  priests  of  the  exile,  it  is  the 
more  remarkable  that  it  should  have  varied  so 
widely  from  the  prophetic  ideal.  For  here,  it  may 
be  presumed,  was  a  precedent  of  high  authority  in 
e.xistence,  put  forth  by  a  recognized  prophet  in  the 
most  solemn  manner ;  and  yet,  witliout  any  refer- 
ence to  this,  the  unknown  and  unauthorized  priests 
of  the  exile  are  supposed  to  have  sketched  out  pre- 
cepts aiul  have  prescribed  rites  of  their  own,  which 
they  had  the  audacity  to  represent  as  given  by 
God  to  Moses  a  thousand  years  before.  Is  it  at  all 
within  the  limits  of  possibility  that  the  returning 
exiles  should  have  at  once  hailed  these  fabrications 
as  the  prescriptions  of  Moses  and  have  consented 
to  adopt  them  ?  Is  there  any  parallel  case  within 
the  annals  of  history  ?  I  greatly  doubt  it,  and  am 
persuaded  that  the  thing  in  itself  is  impossible; 
and  yet  this  is  the  theory  which  is  advanced  for 
the  purpose  of  displacing  the  traditional  authen- 
ticity and  antiquity  of  the  Mosaic  law. 


68      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

There  is  another  feature  with  regard  to  the 
prophet  Ezekiel  which  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  fully  recognized.  It  is  forgotten  that  he 
was  one  of  the  captives  and  passed  his  life  in 
captivity,  and  yet  on  several  occasions  he  speaks  of 
and  describes  events  in  the  home  of  his  fathers  as 
though  he  were  present  in  Jerusalem.  So  that 
the  spirit  of  prophecy,  it  would  seem,  revealed  to 
him  things  distant  in  space  of  which  otherwise  he 
could  have  had  no  knowledge.  We  must  deter- 
mine whether  or  not  this  was  so,  as  it  certainly 
seems  to  have  been ;  but  if  it  was,  it  presents  a 
remarkable  analogy  to  the  more  common  function 
of  prophecy,  which  is  to  depict  things  distant  in 
time.  Now  as  prediction  pure  and  simple  is 
denied  to  be  one  of  the  functions  of  prophecy,  we 
may  also  ask  whether  the  vision  of  things  dis- 
tant in  space  is  likewise  beyond  the  power  of  the 
spirit  of  God,  and  whether  the  evidence  of  its  not 
being  so,  in  Ezekiel  for  example,  is  also  to  be 
set  aside  ;  for  if  not,  there  would  seem  to  be  no 
reason  for  denying  the  analogous  power  of  depict- 
ing things  distant  in  time  as  a  legitimate  function 
of  prophecy. 

There  is  one  other  book  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  demands  independent  notice,  and  that  is  the 
book  of  Daniel,  which  from  the  times  of  Porphyry 


CLAIMS    OF    TlIK    OLD    TKSTAMKNT  HO 

onwards  has  been  the  favorite  butt  of  unljeliev- 
in<:j  criticism.  Now,  liere  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  liook  of  Daniel  is  besi't  willi  dilli- 
culties,  in  consequence  mainly  of  our  own  lack  of 
knowlediite.  For  example,  the  identification  of 
Darius  the  ]\Iede  and  the  history  of  r>elshazzar 
present  questions  that  are  not  ca})alde  of  final 
solution.  r>ut  it  is  so  often  forgotten  that  the 
impossibility  of  obtaining  absolute  certainty  is  no 
reason  for  rejecting  the  balance  of  probability. 
If  probability  is  the  guide  of  life  we  ought  not  to 
reject  its  indications  when  certain  knowledge  is 
unattainaljle.  Now  let  us  supi)ose  that  Daniel  is 
the  romance  of  an  unknown  writer  in  the  second 
century.  It  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  he  had 
a  very  considerable  minute  knowledge  of  the 
times  and  manners  which  he  depicts.  That  he  may 
have  made  some  mistakes  is  of  course  possible. 
Ihit  how  much  probability  is  there  in  his  going 
out  of  the  way,  as  he  clearly  has,  to  perpetrate 
such  a  blunder  as  to  speak  of  Darius  the  Mede 
and  to  mention  his  age  ?  It  is  hardly  conceivable 
tliat  he  did  not  know  how  grossly  he  was  expos- 
ing himself  to  the  charge  of  ignorance  and  in- 
accuracy ;  and  this  is  certainly  some  reason  for 
crediting  him  with  the  possession  of  knowledge 
that  we  lack  ourselves.     To  confound  Darius  the 


70      CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Medewith  Darius  Hystaspes,m  the  second  century 
before  Christ,  is  surely  more  improbable  than  that 
the  true  Daniel  three  centuries  and  a  half  before 
should  have  possessed  knowledge  that  has  passed 
away.  The  very  fact  of  a  presumed  blot  like 
this  on  a  document  in  many  other  respects  exact, 
may  be  taken  with  more  probability  as  evi- 
dence of  special  acquaintance  than  as  betokening 
unpardonable  ignorance  and  error. 

Then,  with  regard  to  the  supposed  Greek 
words  in  Daniel,  I  take  it  we  know  too  little  of 
the  conditions  of  intercourse  between  Greece  and 
Babylonia  in  the  sixth  century  before  Christ  to 
pronounce  with  certainty  on  a  definite  point  of 
detail  like  this.  It  is  known,  however,  that  An- 
timenidas,  a  brother  of  the  poet  Alcteus,  served 
as  a  soldier  in  the  army  of  Nebuchadnezzar. 
Now,  one  fact  of  this  kind  is  sufficient  to  out- 
weigh much  conjectural  hypothesis  based  on 
philological  inference.  If  Daniel  is  genuine, 
then  the  use  of  these  words  speaks  for  itself. 
On  the  other  hand,  any  inference  drawn  from 
their  occurrence  is  hardly  sufficient  to  disprove 
its  genuineness,  though  it  readily  serves  as  one 
item  in  the  indictment  to  the  contrary. 

The  question  of  the  genuineness  of  Daniel, 
however,  is  too  large  to  be  discussed  here;  but 


CLAIMS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      71 

Olio  or  two  coiisiilenitiuiis  of  weight  may  be 
tliiowii  out  l>y  the  way.  ¥ot  instance,  we  learn 
from  Kzekiel  that  Daniel  was  a  well-known  ))ei- 
sonage  cf  the  captivity;  that  he  had  a  iei>utati(in 
for  righteousness  and  wisdom  ;  and  this  is  all  tiiat 
we  know.  Is  it  at  all  likely  that  three  centuries 
and  a  half  afterwards  a  romance  should  have 
lieen  made  out  of  these  slender  materials  hy  an 
unknown  writer,  and  should  have  been  developed 
into  our  existing  book  of  Daniel  ?  For  in  addition 
to  this,  there  is  no  question  but  that  the  romance 
so  concocted  rapidly  made  its  way  as  an  authentic 
history,  as  we  see  from  the  allusion  to  it  in  the 
first  book  of  Maccabees,  and  the  position  assigned 
to  it  in  the  Gospels. 

In  short,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  balance  of 
probability  is  largely  on  the  side  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  Daniel ;  though  here,  as  elsewhere,  abso- 
lute certainty  may  be  unattainable,  or  rather  it 
is  impossible  to  foreclose  every  avenue  of  doubt ; 
and,  what  must  never  be  forgotten,  its  genuine- 
ness and  authenticity  are  so  heavily  weighted 
with  the  miraculous  and  the  incredible.  After 
all,  the  prophecy  of  the  fifth  empire,  which  fore- 
shadows the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  that  of  the 
seventy  weeks,  which  will  fit  into  the  death  of 
Christ  as  it  will  fit  into  nothing  else,  are  vir- 


72  CLAIMS   OF   THE    OLD   TESTAMENT 

tual  challenges  in  favor  of  its  genuineness ;  for 
neither  prophecy  was  more  within  the  range  of 
the  vision  of  an  unknown  and  unauthorized 
writer  in  the  second  century  B.  c.  than  it  was 
within  that  of  the  "man  greatly  beloved,"  who 
declared  himself  so  highly  favored  with  tlie 
visions  of  God.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  substan- 
tive truth  of  the  narrative  has  a  direct  bearing 
upon  its  genuineness;  for,  if  it  is  not  genuine, 
then  it  is  impossible  to  regard  the  personal 
details  otherwise  recorded  than  as  audacious 
falsehoods  simply  thrown  into  the  narrative  as 
garniture,  and  to  commend  the  book  as  minister- 
ing to  an  unhealthy  appetite  for  the  marvellous. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  to  me  impossible 
to  read  the  book  of  Daniel  and  not  feel  that  there 
is  that  in  it  which  is  more  incongruous  with  its 
supposed  fiction  than  the  wonders  related,  how- 
ever explained,  would  be  under  the  circumstances 
as  recorded,  with  its  truth.  If  Daniel  really  was 
the  "  man  greatly  beloved,"  the  chosen  and 
lionored  representative  of  his  nation  at  the  court 
of  his  captors,  it  does  not  seem  out  of  harmony 
with  the  recorded  action  of  God  in  other  ages,  if 
we  believe  the  record,  that  his  career  should  be 
specially  marked  by  special  interposition.  Here, 
again,  we  are  thrown  back  upon  the  old  question 


CLAIMS   OF   TIIF,   OLD   TFSTAMKNT  73 

of  miracles  and  a  supernatural  revelation.  We 
are  reminded  over  and  over  a^Min  that  "  mirack's 
do  not  happen."  For  my  own  part  I  very  strongly 
demur  to  this  statement ;  but  if  we  once  accept 
it,  then  the  next  ([uestion  must  surely  he,  "  Did 
they  ever  happen?"  And  so  far  as  this  springs 
out  of  tlie.  other  dictum,  it  may,  nay,  must,  in 
like  manner  be  decided;  but  of  tliis  il  wouM 
seem  we  may  be  absolutely  certain  :  that  it  is 
equally  impossil)le  to  read  the  Old  Testament 
or  the  New  and  not  find  ourselves  confronted 
with  miracle,  which  we  must  either  ])ut  aside 
at  once,  as  of  no  account,  or  accept;  but  which, 
whatever  its  relation  to  the  substance  of  the 
record,  it  is  wholly  impossible  to  account  for, 
and  which  therefore  must  either  be  taken  as  in- 
tended, in  the  providence  of  God,  to  confirm  the 
narrative  and  commend  its  acceptance,  or  must 
be  regarded  as  vitiating  and  discrediting  the  nar- 
rative, and  as  for  that  reason  to  be  rejected 
together  with  the  narrative  so  discredited. 


DATE  DUE 

F>e«*?fi 

»f 

UTT.  ;>8  1' 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  JN  U.S.A. 

BS480  .L43 

The  claims  of  the  Old  Testament; 


Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1   1012  00052  1817 


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